A recently read a fascinating  book about the untold story of those who survived the Great American Dust Bowl. The late Walter Cronkite described “The Worst Hard Time”  by Timothy Egan as “can’t-put-it-down history.” It chronicles how the government’s  blind-sided economic and social policies of the early 20th century turned the sturdy prairies of mid-America into useless, blowing dust that carried with it destitution and even death — all in the name of creating jobs.

America again faces a scarcity of work. As unemployment rises and opportunities disappear, our politicians scurry for ways to assure us that they are creating more jobs. One of the latest proposals is touted to bring up to 3,000 desperately-needed  jobs to the suffering state of Illinois.

As it happens, this situation is a bit out of the ordinary. It’s one thing to propose public works projects for our country’s infrastructure, etc. But the latest suggestion, eagerly embraced by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and his political cronies, is to transfer most of Guantanamo’s remaining dangerous al-Qaeda prisoners to a little-used, overbuilt facility in a rural area west of Chicago. 

This may be a scary prospect for the people living there, but for the politicians  promoting it, it’s a win-win situation. The Thomson Correctional Center, constructed only eight years ago, is underperforming and in the red. Though 1,600 cells were built, there are only about 200 minimum-security prisoners. In short, it’s a property and a debt obligation that the state of Illinois would be only too glad to get off its books, by  selling it to the federal government.

But this fact is ignored behind the promise of an estimated 3,000 ‘‘good-paying’’ (i.e. government) jobs such a transformation would bring to the region. And prison work can’t be outsourced, either! Doing a quick calculation, this would mean 300 jobs created for each new maximum-security prisoner. Guards and others would report to work daily in a  highly volatile and hostile environment, among detainees who seek martyrdom by killing  infidels. Not exactly your dream job, is it?     

It’s outrageous to presume that unemployed folks living in the area of the prison would qualify for, much less welcome, such jobs. Can you recruit some hometown guy, train him for a few weeks, put him up against some of the most maniacal prisoners found in any  penal institution anywhere, and then expect him to be thankful to a public servant for removing him from the ranks of the unemployed?

I don’t think the pols get it. When they promised to put our economy back on track, we  never anticipated it would be at the expense of our personal or national safety. Yet the same heedless crowd is behind bringing dangerous 9/11 al-Qaeda terrorists to trial in one of America’s most crowded and vulnerable cities. The security expenses to the Big Apple will be enormous, along with the dangers faced in guarding these reckless criminals in their temporary cells, in the courtroom where they’re tried and in transporting them between the two. Rioting is not unlikely. As for the loved ones of the 9/11 victims, their wounds that have been assuaged  by the balm of time will be cruelly ripped open to bleed again, this time in the name of justice.

But what justice was accorded a prison guard at this same lower Manhattan holding facility a few years back when a suspected al-Qaeda inmate attacked him in the eye with a makeshift wooden implement that penetrated his brain and left him physically and mentally impaired?    

I suppose some politicians may even boast that jobs would be created as a result of the high profile spectacle. More foreign press agents occupying New York City hotels,  for example. More T-shirts and hot dogs sold by venders outside the courthouse. But so far, the biggest job created in America thus far has been the “snow job” we’re getting from our misguided political leaders. 

Doris O’Brien lives in Vandenberg Village.