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New Re:Gitmo.
The Gitmo situation has *nothing* to do with terrorism and keeping you safe.

Obama promised he would close Gitmo and Obama must not be allowed to keep a promise. How else can he be shown to be "all hat and no cattle"?
Alex
New Yeah,, as months / now Years ... pass and ... pass ...
I find it increasingly hard to 'empathize' with what MAY be going on in this guy's brain pan.
Beyond glib, he is almost rhapsodic ... too vaguely and Too Often. Followed by ... ... inAction-beyond-tongue.
Sweet Reason is a phrase never intended to imply, merely: s o m e - d a y . . . we'll have to Start on this.

Meanwhile The Noose tightens around ALL Murican 'Civil Liberties', for just One of the mass of Idiocies perpetrated
since The Cheney Shogunate set the Time==[0] on their $Time Bomb$ for Murica.
(Box's cynicism is ineffectual because it is practically Universal--but he may have spotted a Silver-tongued Grifter early-on.)

But trumping all that >THEN< was *Hope* ... and BHO certainly served up a majestic Opera er, 'To Serve Man'
--and maybe with similar results? to ... that now iconic Cookbook.

...

We Await Confirmation ... monthly/hourly etc.
New Promises, promises
The Obameter is following more than 500 promises made by President Barack Obama in the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.

The latest from the Obameter

Promises kept : 241
Compromise: 130


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/

The Gitmo decision was especially painful.
New Wait just a minute here . . .
A Politician kept nearly half his promises? What is this world coming to.
New What todo? Hmmm...
Just off the top of my head - an executive order to Holder: Obey the law of the land; charge them and try them on a timely basis or kick them loose. It's the law.
"But they're bad guys, probably, anyway!!". So what? If we don't obey our own laws, so are we. I'd rather they be bad guys than me. If you have to let them go, keep them in mind and if you see them attacking us with a weapon, shoot them in self defense rather than trying to arrest them. Doesn't seem terribly complicated. If they go home and raise a ruckus about their bad treatment and cause bad feelings about us, so what? It's their right. We can tell the truth in response. That should get us out of trouble, right?

An alternate solution would be to order the cessation of quacking about "the land of the free and the home of the brave" before every frigging sports event until until we can stop ignoring the constitution to keep our brave citizens from widdling their undies in terror of terrorists (anybody who doesn't look like them.) That might do it too.
New Yeahbut...
There are several people there that we know of who shouldn't have been there (e.g. at least some of the Uygurs - http://en.wikipedia....at_Guantanamo_Bay ) They don't need trials, they need to be released.

But either nobody will take them, or some US law prevents them being transferred, or ...

Yes, people charged with crimes should get speedy trials. And people captured "on the battle field" should have speedy hearings to determine whether they are POWs or illegal enemy combatants or civilians or soldiers or whatever. These bad guys aren't superhuman mutants that will kill us all in our beds unless they don't get trials.

But Bush's cronies made such a mess of the rules when they started this GWOT, and our leaders in the House and Senate became such cowards, that even though Obama signed an order to close Gitmo on his first day in office, he hasn't been able to cut the Gordian knot.

Yes, there are clear and sensible ways to end this travesty. Congress deliberately made it impossible to do so without its consent. http://www.theatlant...o-timeline/61509/

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Re: Yeahbut...
Yes, people charged with crimes should get speedy trials.

Yeah, that's the law, at least on one of our levels of law. I'm aware we have one standard of law for the ruling class and another for the ruled, but do we have a third standard for political convenience?
And people captured "on the battle field" should have speedy hearings to determine whether they are POWs or illegal enemy combatants or civilians or soldiers or whatever.
Ignoring the vacuous claim that the whole world is a battlefield, this is a very tiny fraction of them. A much larger percentage were grabbed because of vague accusations or were sold to us by warlords who had an ax to grind. If they're not active military personnel, they're criminals at worst, possibly innocent bystanders. Charge 'em or cut them loose.
Congress deliberately made it impossible to do so without its consent.
Heh... must the be politically inexpedient version of the rule of law. They won't fund transportation? Obama is still the CIC of the military. Put them on a military transport and put them back where they got them. We got them from a barbarous place where people will be mean to them if we put them back? The mean people are not under our rule(s) of law; we can't do anything about them and if we can't obey our laws, why should they obey laws they don't have? If it's such a rotten place, can we get OUR people the hell out of there?
I agree that our legislative branch are a collective bunch of corrupt shitheads and they're our fault because we elected them. They are not all powerful though. They control the purse strings and and block legislation. They can also bloviate on Fox news shows. They can't keep the president from saying "General, send a transport from local base [x] to Guantanamo, put prisoners [a1..an] on it and take them back to place(s) [x1..xn] where we got them and release them with their possessions if we kept them. Do it now." The CIC bit does work with the military. Let congress try to defund the military. That would be fun to watch.
The presidency is touted to be the most powerful position in the world. Obama is acting like he needs permission to go to the bathroom. Considering the lethargy he proceeds with and the alacrity with which he accepts refusal, I have to assume he is getting what he wants. Nobody really believes that the poor fellow is less useful than a margarine dildo.
New It's fine when Congress cut off funding for the Contras, but
in this case the President can ignore it?

If Congress says, Mr. President, you can't spend money on X, then he can't spend money on X. Since everything the President does costs money, it's saying he can't do X. End of story.

It's the same thing as during the Iran/Contra times.

From December 2011:
http://www.foreignaf...-close-guantanamo

Congress has used its spending oversight authority both to forbid the White House from financing trials of Guantánamo captives on U.S. soil and to block the acquisition of a state prison in Illinois to hold captives currently held in Cuba who would not be put on trial -- a sort of Guantánamo North. The current defense bill now before Congress not only reinforces these restrictions but moves to mandate military detention for most future al Qaeda cases unless the president signs a waiver. The White House withdrew a veto threat on the eve of likely passage Wednesday, saying the latest language gives the executive enough wiggle room to avoid military custody.

On paper, at least, the Obama administration would be set to release almost half the current captives at Guantánamo. The 2009 Task Force Review concluded that about 80 of the 171 detainees now held at Guantánamo could be let go if their home country was stable enough to help resettle them or if a foreign country could safely give them a new start...


(The article ends there unless you register.)

I don't like this "the entire world is a battlefield" stuff. I don't like people being held without trial. I don't like the implicit argument that "we can't try the ones who were tortured because the evidence is tainted (and it would be embarrassing) so we have to hold them forever" - if we can't try them, let them go. Keep and eye on them and arrest them properly if they break the law in the future.

We agree on much, I think, but we don't agree that Obama can run roughshod over Congress under the AUMF. We didn't like it when Bush did it, did we? Few things are clearer about Congress's power than the power of the purse.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Move them to Bagram, turn bagram over to ahfgans
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 57 years. meep
New Interesting.
Dunno why they haven't done that.

AFAICS, only Afghans have been sent from Gitmo to Afghanistan - http://en.wikipedia....amo_Bay_detainees - though some countries have accepted non-nationals.

Cheers,
Scott.
     Charlie Pierce: Club Gitmo. - (Another Scott) - (13)
         Re:Gitmo. - (a6l6e6x) - (9)
             Yeah,, as months / now Years ... pass and ... pass ... - (Ashton)
             Promises, promises - (dmcarls) - (1)
                 Wait just a minute here . . . - (Andrew Grygus)
             What todo? Hmmm... - (hnick) - (5)
                 Yeahbut... - (Another Scott) - (4)
                     Re: Yeahbut... - (hnick) - (3)
                         It's fine when Congress cut off funding for the Contras, but - (Another Scott) - (2)
                             Move them to Bagram, turn bagram over to ahfgans -NT - (boxley) - (1)
                                 Interesting. - (Another Scott)
         'What's Really Cook'n in Gitmo?' - (Andrew Grygus)
         On my calendar today ... - (drook) - (1)
             Almost rhymes with (an earlier Murican koan) - (Ashton)

* "The futexes are also cursed."
* "But they come in a choice of three flavours!"
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