Imprisoned By Fear

Texas Republican Michael McCaul is chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, and wants everyone to know that American super-max prisons are the only solution to hold the world's most dangerous criminals.

The chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security is encouraging Mexico's authorities to extradite drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman (wah-KEEN' el chah-poh gooz-MAHN') to the United States to ensure he remains behind bars.

Guzman was arrested Saturday morning in the resort city of Mazatlan, Mexico.

Republican Michael McCaul calls Guzman the world's most notorious drug lord and says on ABC's "This Week" that his arrest is a significant victory for Mexico and the United States.

Guzman faces at least seven federal indictments.

McCaul said it's Mexico's call on where Guzman faces prosecution, but he noted that Guzman escaped from prison in 2001 and corruption continues to plague Mexico.

McCaul says Guzman would end up "in a super-max prison" in the U.S. from which he could not escape.

So Guzman, the Mexican drug kingpin, the "world's most notorious drug lord", well we would have to extradite him to the US in order to face our justice system so he can spend the rest of his life in a super-max cell.  Got it.  What about, you know, other criminals?

McCaul said efforts to close Gitmo were impractical and questioned where detainees suspected of terrorism could be housed.

“The president's position was let's just close it down and find a solution to this,” he said. “I think the reverse should be true and that is we ought to be trying to find how to deal with them before we close this facility down.

“Name me one American city that would like to host these guys -- these terrorists in their country?,” asked McCaul.

Oh, so absolutely we must put the world's most notorious drug lord in a US super-max, a man so dangerous he had his own personal army that viciously fought military troops and killed civilians (completely unlike a terrorist), a criminal so ruthless and rich he regularly made Forbes's list of World Billionaires and Most Powerful People, but we can never, ever put some angry former goat herder from Yemen in a US super-max because unlike El Chapo, there's too much of a risk of reprisal to the surrounding community.

Right.