Obama to order Guantanamo Bay prison closed

Uhm, the source of the link wasn't irrelevant as it was merely directly quoting Obama from his Sunday interview with George Snuffalupagus. I used the first link that came up on Yahoo's news item search because I wanted to find out which program I'd seen him on. I don't care who reported it, the simple fact is that he was live, on camera stating that it wouldn't happen immediately.

BH- I have to give you credit, you're consistant in your idolatry of the man. If nothing else, it will be fascinating and highly entertaining to watch you cover for him at all turns for the next 4 years. Maybe I'll finally understand how the liberals have viewed me the past 8 years.

More pandering and waffling from Obama. The man should invest in some "Waffle House" franchises. Perhaps all of the Clintonistas in his cabinet are already rubbing off by passing on the techniques from their former master.

The military will take as long as possible to physically close down Gitmo. Thankfully, Govt. red tape will assure a slow process.

I have a strong feeling that we are going to need that facility in the months and years to come. The world dynamic is ever changing.

reply to post by jibeho

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I think the military will be very happy to follow the new Commander in Chief's instructions delivered though the first respected SecDef since Bush43 took office.

Would this not be just the RIGHT time - the propitious moment - to RETURN the Guantanamo Bay property to Cuba from which we TOOK it in the Spanish American War? Even the money-hungry Cuban expatriates fat-catting it in south Florida would applaud Obama!

[edit on 1/13/2009 by donwhite]

reply to post by donwhite

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It would be great if Cuba got their property back but, I am not going to hold my breath on this one. With Russia taking a new tack in that general region, the base closing will not happen anytime soon.

reply to post by jibeho

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I do not mean this as personal. I expect far more Americans share that sentiment than who agree with me. But that is short sighted. America has a long history of being short sighted and of opportunities missed. I’m hoping for CHANGE.

If Russia poses any threat in the Western Hemisphere - it does not - and is not here just to annoy us over Georgia - it is - then the BEST way to gain the support of Cuba and probably Venezuela too, would be just that one single act, RETURN Guantanamo Bay to Cuba.

[edit on 1/13/2009 by donwhite]

reply to post by donwhite

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I'm with you buddy. I would love to build a resort in a newly open Cuba. Cuba is a great place to fish, sail and dive (so I've read). Our friends up north enjoy all of the trappings that Cuba has to offer.

Strategically, we will drag are feet on this one. I would love to be proven wrong.

As far as the current Gitmo guests, where would they end up?

Perhaps Devils Island would suffice.


The French could use the "detainees" as docents.

Here is one more reason to keep these little fellas right where they belong.



Isn't that special. Is it any wonder...



www.reuters.com...

reply to post by jibeho

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Old habits die hard! Yet, the younger generation of Cubans in Miami voted for Obama, breaking the 1959 tradition of voting Republican. Most of the old McCarthy-ites have died off. We may be facing a New Dawn!



As I pointed out above, the prisoners MUST come here. We are the ones who started this MESS. We ought to be the ones who have to see it through! Do we have no sense of guilt at all?

reply to post by jibeho

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Sweet Jesus! First, would anyone care to define the two words I’ve capitalized that are made so important to us: “ . . POTENTIAL danger they pose to U.S. INTERESTS.”

POTENTIAL. INTERESTS.

OK. As for the whole tenor of these remarks, I’d say, SELF SERVING. Bush43 types trying to justify their long tenure of TORTURE and physical and mental abuse of HELPLESS prisoners and their DENIAL of basic human rights. This is their rationale.

You can tell a lot about a man‘s character (or lack thereof) by how he treats the helpless people around him.

reply to post by donwhite

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Are you actually implying that all prisoners are helpless?? Or just these poor helpless prisoners at Gitmo? I don't think some of these furry little fellas were helpless when they blew up the USS Cole do you? Will they still be helpless if they are transferred to another prison?

Prisoners in general live better lives than many people live on the outside of the barbed wire. Before you know my tax dollars will be used to provide a terrorist with a PhD. He will then file endless lawsuits from the comfort of his prison cell.


[edit on 13-1-2009 by jibeho]

[edit on 13-1-2009 by jibeho]

Just had a brilliant idea while reading an add for my local animal shelter.

"Adopt-A-Detainee"

For all of those who pity these poor detainees. You can sign up to have one stay in your house. You can feed him, take him for walks, take him to church on Sunday, play in the parks with him. Just don't feed him after midnight or get him wet.

Save my tax dollars and take on the burden yourselves.


edit for spelling. The Scotch is kicking in.

[edit on 13-1-2009 by jibeho]

Every time someone posts up something Obama has done or is about to do, I have a little 1 minute party in my head. So far, so good. That's all I can say.

He hasn't even started yet and he's pwning nubs left and right.

reply to post by jibeho

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Yes.



If the warden is doing his job, all prisoners are helpless. In some prisons, everything is done by the bell. Humans are kept in small cages. Like we formerly did to wild animals before we got humane. We have a way to go yet when dealing with our fellow man.



I don’t know that we have any of the USS Cole attackers in custody. I understand those in Yemen escaped. Anyway, I regard those attackers as soldiers fighting for what they believe in. If we capture them, we should bring them to trial, and then humanely incarcerate them. It is of no use to show how INHUMAN we could be.



Are you PROUD of that?



Life moves on. Some are left behind.

Smart guys treat prisoners the way they want prisoners to treat them when prisoners are on the outside. It makes for a better life all the way around.

MesaX this is where my thinking really does stray away from that of the Bush admin any many other people . The best direction to go is an International Convention that allows detainees to be held indefinitely or until the threat from Islamic Extremism is gone in humane conditions . IMO the Judicial process isnt suitable for enemy combats because it gives them rights they don't have unless they were to commit a crime behind the wire .

As for Guantanamo being full of innocent people I find that notion almost laughable . Sure some may have been forced to take up arms against allied forces as insurgent groups will often force people to join there cause . The problem is that if that makes a detainee innocent then that is what every one of those nut jobs would claim .

Don what could be possible gained by moving the Detainees to a Max Security Prison on US Soil ?

[edit on 14-1-2009 by xpert11]

reply to post by xpert11

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Sounds like a Clash of Cultures or a War of Religions! We should abhor both equally! Hey, we are the inheritors of the Rights of Englishmen! Here’s a speech that thrills me still: “I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down, for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even the dust.

I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms: to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.

I know already, by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you.” The first Queen Elizabeth of England (1533-1603). The daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and 55 years old when giving this speech.


I hope Mr X11, your “indefinitely” would end no later than when hostilities ended? And how do you define “extremism?” And how do we make sure the person we are holding is actually a violator? We discovered several held at Git-mo were “ratted” on by old enemies and it took them years for them to get out.



We’ve been here, done that. The Spanish Inquisition. Baron Geoffrey and the Star Chamber court in England. America’s own Massachusetts Witch Hunts. And hero turned villain Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) is one of the best-known figures of the French Revolution. He was an influential member of the Committee of Public Safety and was instrumental in the period of the Revolution commonly known as the Reign of Terror that ended with his arrest and execution in 1794.



1) Symbolic of a new era.

2) Like Abu Ghraib and the Presidential Palace in Baghdad, all three should be (or should have been) bulldozed ASAP. I cannot fathom the depth of ignorance and excess of hubris that kept the US from doing that in Iraq.

3) It was sited there to be OUTSIDE the jurisdiction of US Federal courts. If we had a decent Supreme Court, that argument would not fly. US judicial jurisdiction would go where the FLAG goes, IMO.

4) We - Americans all - crated this monster. It is only fair that WE solve it. Or suffer it. It’s kinda like having a two-headed baby born to your loving wife. Your first impulse is to kill it, but you can’t. That is our dilemma. That is our albatross. Part of the Bush43 L E G A C Y.

[edit on 1/14/2009 by donwhite]

reply to post by donwhite

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A clash of cultures would be an accurate description . That is not to say that a religious war is being fought if that was the case Turkey and Saudi
Arabia would have been invaded . It is true that the invasion of Iraq alienated a lot of the moderates who are badly needed on our side .

Lets not forgot that if any of the detainees got lose on US soil they would not hesitate to kill more innocent people . As for the definition of an extremist well I don't know why this isnt clear in some people minds . Clearly anyone who takes up arms against the elected governments in Iraq and Afghanistan is an extremist along with those who are suicide bombers or planned on such an action e.t.c .

On Abu Ghraib I hold the view that the extend of who authorized the torture of detainees was very well covered up that is as far as I can go without going off topic . The enemy has brought on any military action against there organisations themselves and that includes the capture of enemy detainees . Symbolism by it self isnt enough because the next time a torture scandal erupts Command Responsibility will still be ignored .

As for the jurisdiction of the US courts well there is simply no reason for them to have jurisdiction over people who are not US citizens and were not captured or detained on US soil .

Great. Now the US black government will just have to ship all their war prisoners and such to Mexico, where they can get tortued and take shots of tequila. We're giving them to much leeway!

reply to post by xpert11

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I was alluding to Bush43 who tried as hard as he might to foment a religious war. More than once he accused Islam of waging a war on ‘Western Values’ which are his code words for Christianity. Well understood by his Born Again sycophants.



Mr X11, you have at least 4 issues in that paragraph that need to be better understood before anyone can make good commentary. In other words, “innocent people” and “extremists” and “suicide bombers” all carry HEAVY baggage both FOR and AGAINST. To keep it straight we also should define or describe “elected government” to reach a common ground.

I have reminded my readers that the US and UK ended any real meaning in the ordinary sense to the term “innocent people” when the 2 of them bombed Dresden in 1945 at the close of WW2. America went further with its AF Gen. Curtis LeMay inspired conversion to incendiary bombing of Japan away from the standard 500 pound HE bombs. Japan’s cities were predominately made of wooden construction and from our POV, ideally vulnerable to firebombing. Capping that was the decision to atom bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Innocent” is meaningless in war. There are no innocents. As Hitler is supposed to have said, “Kill the babies, they will be soldiers tomorrow!”

The term “extremist” is so vague as to really be more a distraction than adding to the discourse, at least up here. Let me quote exactly from Barry Goldwater, founder and hero of the modern post Eisenhower Republican Party, in 1964 at the GOP National Convention. In his greatly popular Acceptance Speech, he said “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” This is still GOP talk! Any speaker can get an enthusiastic response by reciting these lines! Those words carry MEANING! I offer “extremist” is a person you or I don’t like.

“Suicide bombers” is another word fraught with potential for misunderstanding. We miss a very significant fact if we ignore the underlaying conditions that drive any people to employ what must be for them as dreaded a weapon as it is for the people against whom it is to be used. We are only interested in the symptoms, never the causes. I have no problem with suicide bombers. I understand they are people who love their community so much they are willing to die for it. Done in other times and places and by our people gets you a VC or a CMO.

On “elected governments” in Iraq. I assume you know that no one can run for office in Iraq who has not passed the US vetting process. We hand picked 1,500 candidate for the current Parliament of about 275 members. Yes, the Iraqi got to vote maybe for the first time, but not in a REAL election. Only in a staged election. Much like what we thought we had in Gaza in 2006 but which backfired on us.

I don’t know when or IF Iraq will have a FREE and OPEN election. It is only natural that those who are now in power will want to retain power. And as long as they do our bidding, we will want to “support” the “elected” government. We are re-running the same play the Brits enacted in the mid 1920s in Iraq.

The Iraqi are showing some unexpected (by us) independence. While our Maximum Leader Bush43 was arguing daily against setting a time table for our withdrawal, the Iraqi were FORCING our representative into a June ‘09 withdrawal to fixed bases and a 2011 OUT of HERE deal. The Iraqi did for us what the American political system is not good at doing. Acting Smart!

Whatever we did in Iraq, we also did in Afghanistan. Karzai is a good enough fellow, but he is much more a representative of America than he is of the Afghan people. He is so popular there he cannot leave Kabul after dark! And he can only go out of Kabul in daylight with a brigade to escort him.

That new guy in Pakistan Asif Ali Zadari, widowed husband of Benazir Bhutto is talking very independent of the US. Of course, if he is TOO close to the US, then 80% of the Pakistani are against him. That is what happened to Musharraf. We kept pushing him to attack in the Northwest province and the FATA - Federally Administered Tribal Area - where people are NOT the Euro-types as are found down in Islamabad. Even the much vaunted ISI - Inter-Service Intelligence - is not fully in control. It’s much like riding a wild bull in a rodeo. You hang on hoping to wear him out.

[edit on 1/15/2009 by donwhite]

it could quite easily be kept open - just stop the torture.
That's the simple way to draw a line under the previous administration.

And for all those who deny that torture ever took place, here's an interesting admission.

Let's hope Obama has a bit more morality than shrub - after all it wouldn't be difficult.

reply to post by xpert11

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I have already said our first mistake was not in bulldozing Abu Ghraib Prison and the Presidential Palace in Baghdad. Those 2 edifices represented the WORST of Saddam Hussein. Whey we would have to USE them ourselves is beyond me. It’s got to be elementary.

Guantanamo Bay is equal to if not worse than Abu Ghraib. We took Git-mo from the helpless Cubans after we decided we could not remain in Cuba profitably, it having fallen into our hands when the Spanish surrendered in 1899. Just as was true in the Philippines, there were local rebels already in place who unfortunately for them in both places, actually thought the Americans had come as LIBERATORS. Not so, silly boys! We came as commercial exploiters backed by the USMC and US Army. The Muslim Filipinos on Mindanao killed 3,000 US soldiers there and we said, we’re outt’a here but not before we took control of the money of the Catholic Filipinos in Manila and the main islands.

We left Cuba for the same reason the Haitians ran Napoleon away from that sugar plantation in 1803, mosquitoes. All the people native to either place and still alive had survived a minor case of malaria. Newcomers died by the scores of 1000s. We left.

We could UNDO a century of commerical exploitation backed by the armed might of the USMC in the lands south of the Reio Grande by returning Guantanamo Bay to Cuba. A place we have no use for. Except as an on-going irritant to Latinos of all flags. I do hope we begin to THINK and to ACT smart.

Extra-territoriality. Originally English speaking countries regarded their sovereignly to extend 3 miles off their shores into the oceans. Spain and others however regarded the off-shore boundary to be 3 leagues which it turns out is 12 English miles. Then such nations as Iceland which heavily depended on fishing, extended their claim for jurisdiction first to 20 miles but which grew into today’s 200 miles and in Peru’s case, 400 miles and called Economic Zones. I believe the US uses the 12 and 200 miles as its “right” to control the oceans.

American Empire. After World War 2, the US faced for the first time what to do with conquered countries. (We regarded the 1898 Spanish War conquests as colonies which we label territories. It makes us feel superior). We still have Armed Forces in Germany, and maybe elsewhere in Europe. We still have armed forces in South Korea and maybe Japan. In fact, the DoD says we have “over 100 bases” around the world.

We don’t want our soldiers subject to local laws which are often driven as much by custom and usage as by reducing to writing. This is not just hubris although that is no doubt a strong component, but it is as simple as it looks. We are unfamiliar with local customs. After all, we go abroad to TEACH and not to learn! Hey, we already know! We send our people out on 1 or 2 year tours. Highly desirable postings may be for 3 years for single men, 2 years for married. So we do not have either time or inclination to learn local ways.

So we have acquired the habit of using our laws outside our land boundaries. Then with the advent of international drug smuggling which we have been unable to halt despite the 1969 War on Drugs proclaimed by President Nixon, we began to make acts done in foreign countries against Americans there a violation of American laws. Just ask Gen. Noriega of Panama if it is not so!

He is still imprisoned in the basement of the Federal Courthouse in Miami. Convicted in April, 1992, Noriega's US prison sentence ended in September of 2007; pending the outcome of extradition requests by both Panama and France, he remains in prison as of January 2009. (I don’t understand holding him unless Noriega has consented to stay here rather than go to France of Panama. It was said he had very nice quarters to do his time in).

As you should have heard recently, the rush to achieve a SOF - status of forces - agreement with Iraq was essential because the UN Resolutions we claimed gave us the RIGHT to be in Iraq expired December 31, 2008. We knew the UN would not vote an extension to a resolution the majority felt we had violated in the first place. Of course, as in any Empire, most of the SOF agreements - not treaties you should note - are BOUGHT for cash from the ruling cliques where we are visiting. (Treaties require the approval of the Senate whereas the Executive Branch claims Agreements do not).

See Article 1, US Constitution, Section 8. The Congress shall have power . . . Clause 9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; Clause 10. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations; Clause 11. To declare war . . and make rules concerning captures on land and water; Clause 14. To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces; Clause 18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
www.law.cornell.edu...

[edit on 1/15/2009 by donwhite]