President Obama, Why Have You Forsaken Your Promise to Close Guantanamo?
In the Huffington Post today, Bianca Jagger, some popular culture relic from the 80s, wonders “President Obama, Why Have You Forsaken Your Promise to Close Guantanamo?”
She chronicles the number of times Barack Obama has promised to close Guantanamo and turn loose it’s orange-clad denizens on the world;
When President Obama was elected, he electrified people throughout the world, particularly the human rights community, by using his second day in office to issue executive orders to close the Guantánamo detention center and end torture and secret detention.
The order authorized: “The detention facilities at Guantánamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order”.
Of course, the short answer is that it’s a damn sight easier to make promises and write proclamations than it is to actually do stuff.
Hasn’t Bianca noticed that in her long life, and on several other campaign promises Obama made and can’t keep? Of course, she comes from arguably the poorest nation on earth, Nicaragua, and Jagger supports the bloody communist Ortega regime while she sits in relative comfort in her British home and snipes at democracies around the world and ignores the human rights abuses in her former home. But there’s no money in reforming a poor nation, is there?
Category: General Whackos
When one is that rich, from others’ efforts, it’s not a function of stupidity, but of focus. Her focus is on who’s richer than Obama, marriable, and making noise about Gitmo? She is not considering the recent legal horror stemming from the trial of a conspirator in the embassy bombings.
They would have closed Guantanamo already if it wasn’t for fear mongering over moving them to facilities in Illinois and attaching the continued operation of Gitmo to the newest defense authorization bill.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10357/1112938-473.stm
I, for one, welcomed the idea of the Feds moving the Gitmo prisoners to Thomson Prison. Living in Illinois, I have no fear of them becoming a target for other terrorists to free or their escape. As a truck driver, I’ve driven by the Thomson facility and it is extremely secure. The improvements outlined by the government would’ve have made it more so. Plus it is a financial drain on this state that we can ill-afford. Alas, fear-mongering and an ill-informed populace rose up against what was a win-win for Illinois.
But, hey, they do that every two years in Chicagoland and re-elect the same dumbasses who have ruined this state so what did you really expect?
NotSoOld,
Classic case of NIMBY.
I for one am glad the President broke his promise, there’s not a damn thing wrong with leaving them in GITMO….
Old Tanker,
On a simple logistical and ethical level I don’t have an issue with Gitmo either. From a political perspective where Gitmo is serving as a public relations problem with both the popular opinion of people around the world and the impact it has on our allied governments ability to work with us I wish they’d move them to a new facility.
Makes you wonder why Mick divorced her. No it doesn’t!
NotSo,
Sure seems like furor over GITMO has waned greatly over the last two years except for those way out on the fringe, Code Pink, WCW, etc… I don’t think it’s the public relations problem it once was….
It was never a public relations problem. It was a campaign issue and nothing more. Something for the Left to latch onto in their quest to unseat as many on the Right as possible in those elections.
OT,
It’s not the same issue domestically as it was even a couple of years ago, no. I think it’s partly because Gitmo was a convenient avenue of attack against Bush but not against Obama. Also we’re not adding new people to the facility like we were a few years ago and many of the human rights complaints have been addressed.
Internationally though it’s still a significant black eye. Every time the US tries to address a human rights issue somewhere in the world the continued use of Gitmo is raised. It also provides a huge amount of ammunition for left wing political parties overseas in their attempt to undermine the right wing and centrist parties attempts to remain close to the US geopolitically. Gitmo just makes it harder than it should be to make (and keep) friends and get people to do what we want.
Stonewall,
It’s very much an issue. I can hardly have a political discussion overseas without it being raised. Just google “guantanamo anti Americanism” or read into elections overseas in the past decade in places like Spain and Germany to see how it’s undermined out foreign policy. Not wanting it to be true does’t make it so.
Prior to using Gitmo as an excuse to not engage in basic human rights, Abu Jamaal Mumia (and any other prisoner) provided the excuse. Should we close Gitmo then someone, perhaps even the accused murderer in Tuscon, Loughner, will become the next lighthouse.
Gitmo is truly just a case of convenience used by folks who use it to strike against Americans who behave as if others’ opinions are the only thing that matter in life. One could say Gitmo, or Thompson, or Folsom Prison and it really wouldn’t matter.
Agree that it’s classic NIMBY. Willing to bet when one checks the towns around any prison, one finds the families and supporters of the criminals. So it carries that unless we were to keep the terrorists in near-absolute isolation so no one knew their location, we can be assured that the staff of the prison holding the terrorists, the staff members’ families, locals and bystanders would have to deal with terrorists and their American supporters.
As for me, not so concerned about Gitmo as our President’s declaration that, should a US civilian court of law find the accused innocent, they will be held indefinitely. That rather destroys any argument in addressing due process of law, laws of war, and human rights. I notice that none on the left are making any noise that can be noticed in that regards.
Listen there has to be honest and open talk about the threat we face. GITMO is not nearly as bad as SOME places could be, but also not responding to our critics is also a failure on our part. I believe that having these ass hats in some place that is easy to get to is tactically stupid, as is allowing civilian trials, for those caught in acts of war. But it not enough to simply Do. We could convict, and publish the findings of (classified info redacted of course) the tribunals, and execute a number of them with little or no real effort, and simply laugh off the bleeding hearts that want to wine about it. We CAN do that. But what we NEED to do is make a very good iron proof case as to WHY we MUST do these things. President Bush’s major failing in this was not being clear on these points, and not building a decent case. President Obama, not sold on GITMO in the first place will never make such a case. It comes back to another central argument. Why fight at all? Why are they so bad? this is not fascism, or communism, it won’t control huge nation states hell bent on conquering the world. there is no “Evil Empire” and yet, there is. Because the threat is diffuse and nebulous, does not make it any less real, and indeed might make it a hundred times more dangerous. You could count on the Soviets to always do what is in their best interest, they had no wish to start a nuclear confrontation because they, too would be wiped out. But these Islamofacsists are a whole different ball of wax. In some cases, many, they WANT to die. And their message is very alluring to people who have lived a very shitty life. Never mind that the reason their life is so shitty has a lot to do with the same people putting out the message. I feel that GITMO must NOT BE CLOSED, nor the prisoners there released until we can be certain… Read more »