To the editor:

Congressman Jim Moran clearly said that he was NOT advocating for the GITMO prisoners to end up in Alexandria in his OpEd From Guantanamo to Alexandria in the Washington Post. Of course, he would not advocate for this to happen. He was saying that the people in Alexandria are strong Americans and would deal with it if it were to happen.

We have already suffered hard experiences with housing terrorist planners and spy prisoners, which required extra security and an enormous amount of unfunded money. But we are Americans and in Alexandria we are contributors and volunteers who make the best by doing the right thing. We are a close-knit community and our designation as a Virginia Independent city, not in a county, is well justified. My husband and I do support universal human rights so GITMO has to be closed and the prisoners have to be housed somewhere. We do hope it is NOT in Alexandria. I encourage all of your readers to take action by contacting their representatives in Congress to oppose locating the prisoners here.

As an aside, I would like to say that I certainly hope that all of the Alexandria Times readers that are reading these letters voted in the City Council and School Board elections in May. If we are going to be a democracy, we need to practice it.

– Judy Lowe
Alexandria