US to Build Huge New Prison in Afghanistan

The Obama administration is supposedly determined to cut hundreds of billions in spending, so it struck Glenn Greenwald of Salon as ironic when he noticed that the military last week started soliciting bids for the construction of a massive prison in Bagram, Afghanistan. The facility is to hold approximately 2,000 detainees, and cost between $25 million and $100 million. Never mind, Greenwald notes with disgust, that “in the US prisons are so wildly overcrowded that courts are ordering them to release inmates en masse.”

Nope, budget crisis or no, we’ve got $100 million to expand “the oppressive, due-process-free prison regime” we’re operating around the world. Some have suggested that after killing Osama bin Laden, the US would wind down the War on Terror. Instead we’ve stepped up drone attacks, renewed the Patriot Act, and are now building someplace to detain yet more people without habeas corpus rights. “If that’s winding things down, I sure would hate to see what a redoubling of the American commitment to Endless War looks like.” Click to read his entire piece. (More Glenn Greenwald stories.)