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US President Barack Obama has pledged a new push to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amid a growing prisoner hunger strike there.
Congress has blocked efforts to close the prison, but Mr Obama said he would renew discussions with lawmakers.
Mr Obama told reporters he had asked a team of officials to review operations at Guantanamo Bay and said he was not surprised there were problems there.
"It is inefficient, it hurts us in terms of our international standing, it lessens co-operation with our allies on counter-terrorism efforts, it is a recruitment tool for extremists, it needs to be closed," Mr Obama said.
"I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe," Mr Obama told reporters.
Or is this just more talk from our commander in chief who can't walk the walk? He did promise in 2008 he'd shut it down but how hard did he really try? It's easy to tell us you want it closed but even easier to do nothing about it.
A military contractor, BRDC (Burns and Roe Dick Corp. Services), is building the new recreation yard outside Camp 6, a six-year-old, 200-cell prison where about 120 of the most cooperative of Guantánamo’s 171 captives are kept.
The contract is for a base year and four option years for a maximum of sixty months or a maximum value of $100 million for all contracts, whichever comes first. The expected contract completion date is July 2013.
Originally posted by Swills
reply to post by LogicGrind
It's fairly obvious he alone couldn't close the prison, which is spelt out pretty clear in the OP, regardless, my question is how hard has he been trying to close it down? He gave it a go and it didn't work. What next?
For things to change politically it's usually takes time and he's had 4+ years to shut down GITMO so where he is with that? Has Congress changed their minds as of late? Has he been trying to change their mind?
With all this being said, I must say I have absolutely no faith in the current political system because it's all clearly corrupt to the core. I consider Obama and the rest of them puppets who do as they are told. So Obama can run his mouth all he wants but as far as I'm concerned he's not at all trying to close GITMO whether he actually can or not.edit on 30-4-2013 by Swills because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by LogicGrind
reply to post by Swills
Or is this just more talk from our commander in chief who can't walk the walk? He did promise in 2008 he'd shut it down but how hard did he really try? It's easy to tell us you want it closed but even easier to do nothing about it.
Let me refresh your memory as to why Obama couldn't close Guantanamo.
Fox News and Rush Limbaugh scared the American public that if we moved the prisoners to prisons on American soil that we would be hit with terrorist attacks to free the prisoners
Republicans blocked the closure of Guantanamo because they refused to approve any prison to move the prisoners to.
But yeah, go ahead and blame Obama.