Will Yemeni detainees sue to stay at Gitmo?

Michael Isikoff at Newsweek, lets it slip that some Guantanamo detainees would actually prefer the warmth of the tropical breezes of Cuba and the protective blanket of the Geneva Convention to the cold weather of the Thomson Correctional Facility in northwestern Illinois, and the lockdown conditions of a Supermax federal prison.  He quotes Marc Falkoff, a lawyer who represents some of the Yemeni detainees at Gitmo:

But the final irony is that many of the detainees may not even want to be transferred to Thomson and could conceivably even raise their own legal roadblocks to allow them to stay at Gitmo.



Falkoff notes that many of his clients, while they clearly want to go home, are at least being held under Geneva Convention conditions in Guantánamo. At Thomson, he notes, the plans call for them to be thrown into the equivalent of a "supermax" security prison under near-lockdown conditions.


"As far as our clients are concerned, it's probably preferable for them to remain at Guantánamo," he says.

 In his analysis of Isikoff's post, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air concludes:

Would it be the height of irony if the courts blocked a transfer of inmates from Gitmo on the grounds that the new facility violates Geneva Convention standards — and that Gitmo and the military commissions systems meet them? Indeed it would, if the administration ever tries to make the transfer at all. The prison won’t be ready until 2011, and by that time, a new Congress will be much less likely to allow the transfer, as Isikoff points out in his blog post.



Let’s root for irony, shall we?

Indeed.