Can we stop blaming Obama for Guantanamo?

May 28, 2010 | 12:51 PM ET

Key Senate Committee Rejects Obama Request for Alternate Gitmo PrisonA key Senate committee has dealt another setback to the Obama Administration's efforts to close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-MI, told reporters Friday, "The money for a prison in Illinois was struck...a prison available to house detainees from Gitmo. That was a voice vote. A clear majority voted 'AYE.' I and a few others voted against striking those funds."

The White House announced Dec. 15 that it intended to transfer Gitmo detainees to the Thomson Correctional Center in rural, northwestern Illinois and needed $245 million to do so.


The rebuff comes on the heels of a similar move last week in the House to reject the federal funds request, as well, but White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggested, then, that the issue was not dead yet, "We have always maintained that we need increased prison facility (sic), and I think the law prevents the Department of Defense from -- but not the Department of Justice -- from purchasing such a facility."

The House Armed Services Committee also requested a report from the Administration on ideas as to how a facility might be structured. Gibbs said, "That report and details will be going up to Congress," though he did not say when.

The Senate panel met behind closed doors Thursday to hammer out a major defense spending blueprint called the Defense Authorization bill, a popular piece of legislation that Levin hopes to have on the Senate floor before the July Fourth recess.


http://congress.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/05/28/key-senate-committee-rejects-obama-request-for-alternate-gitmo-prison/

I am being sarcastic, of course. NIMBY syndrome, clearly.

though.

They have reviewed little, questioned little, done so little.
The people are threatened when the government detains prisoners of any nationality, in any disposition aribtrarily.
Silence reinforces the threat.
Questions will unravel it.

Obama for not keeping his promise to close down Gitmo.

He's the president of the United States, he's going to be blamed for shit. He's a big boy, he can take it.

You've posted what looks to be an interesting story, I'm going to read it now.

I just prefer to deal in facts. And this is a fact.

(I used to have a whole paragraph about LBJ_arm-twisting_bully pulpit yada, yada, but I deleted it after HCR passed. Guess that wasn't wise...)

whether it's done at Guantanamo or here.
These men are being detained on suspicion alone.
There is no presumption of innocence.
The reason the Bush Regime created this prison was they knew that arbitrary detention on American soil would raise a response in the public.
Now, Obama wants to move the detainees here.
But they are what they are-- detained, arbitrary prisoners.
Are they guilty?
Guilty of what?
We were never sure. And we were never sure from the very start.
We tried torture, and that did not make us sure.
Maybe every demon Dick Cheney wanted to see was never there. And maybe these people just need to be set free with compensation for the income they would have had for all these years in prison.

But - you'll see it here. I have.

it's about ceasing the crimes committed there. Simply moving the crime to a different location is masturbation at best, aiding and abetting more accurately.

.

And that still leave the black site recently confirmed by the Red Cross at Bagram.

US abuse of detainees is not over.

Have you read nothing about this for the last two? Do you even know where Gitmo is?

...taking place.

or contract it out. We have become a rouge nation engaging in a global campaign of terror and TPTB have no intention of stopping it.

I call bullshit. The torture ended before Bush was even out of office.

your nature to ignore and deny all that doesn't fit your tired old narrative.

If you are interested, you can find thousands of sources in a few seconds.

Go. Learn.

It's clear how resolute he was about doing it. But he has been fought tooth and nail by almost every other force in DC over the subject. It's certainly not accurate to say he didn't want to close Gimto.

The detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay have also diminished the United States' reputation, providing a magnet for criticism from allies and enemies alike. In the years since Amnesty International has called for closure of the detention facilities, a growing number of high-ranking U.S. officials from both political parties, allied governments, and the United Nations have issued calls for the prison's closure.

The detention facility at Guantánamo Bay isn't the only prison where the United States is holding detainees from the "war on terror." At Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, Camp Bucca and Camp Cropper in Iraq, and many more - some known and others secret - are used to detain those captured by the U.S. military. Camp Bucca alone has at times held 20,000 prisoners, most of whom live in groups of tents surrounded by wire. Most detainees are held unlawfully, without warrant or charge, and without recourse to challenge their detention. Even when Guantánamo is closed, the push for detainee human rights must continue.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/counter-terror-with-justice/guantanamo-and-illegal-us-detentions/page.do?id=1051262

We should be worried about whether the US is treating detainees justly and humanely, not about Obama.