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Obama Takes a Hit on Guantánamo
Democrats tie funding to a plan for prisoners
WASHINGTON - Congressional Democrats, dissatisfied with President Obama's lack of a detailed plan to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison, yesterday rejected his request for $80 million to transfer the 240 detainees still held there, a high-profile rebuke to Obama, who has pledged to close the facility within a year of taking office.
A guard leans on a fencepost as a Guantanamo detainee, left, jogs inside the exercise yard at Camp 5 detention center, the US Naval Base, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in January 2009. US President Barack Obama's plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by early 2010 drew a crushing Senate rejection on Wednesday as well as a tough FBI warning over moving any detainees to US soil. (AFP/POOL/File/Brennan Linsley) While saying they will grant Obama's funding request for combat operations and diplomacy in Iraq and Afghanistan, top Senate Democrats declared yesterday that they won't approve the Guantanamo money until they see an acceptable plan to deal with the suspected terrorists - one that doesn't include transferring them to American soil.
"The administration has not come up with a plan at this point," Dick Durbin of Illinois, the number two Democrat in the Senate, said in advance of an expected Senate vote today on an amendment to keep the detainees outside the United States. "The feeling was at this point we were defending the unknown."
The House took a similar action last week, approving $96 billion for the two wars, but leaving out $80 million for Guantanamo and adding a ban on moving any detainees to US soil until two months after Obama submits a plan for their relocation.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said yesterday that lawmakers were right to insist on more details on closing Guantanamo, and that Obama would offer a "hefty part" of his plan tomorrow in a major policy speech.
The congressional setback on Guantanamo raises the stakes for Obama's speech, which comes after a series of controversial decisions that drew applause from conservatives and grumbling from liberals. Facing strong Republican opposition to closing Guantanamo, he must also reassure his liberal supporters who are angry at his decision to restart a revamped version of military tribunals for some detainees - a justice system he condemned as a candidate.
Obama has said he wants many of the detainees to be returned to their home countries, but has not ruled out trying others in federal courts and imprisoning them in the United States.
The main sticking point between the White House and Congress is the prospect that Obama, unable to repatriate most of the detainees, will have to put many of them on US soil. Republicans in the House and Senate introduced legislation that would block that move, and some moderate Democrats - fearful of voter backlash - supported them.
The decision to buck the president on Guantanamo left Democrats on the defensive and Republicans reveling at the discord.
Harry Reid, the Senate's top Democrat, said he agreed with Obama on closing Guantanamo because it stirs anger among violent Islamic extremists and "makes us less safe." But he warned yesterday that Democrats, who control both houses of Congress, will not act "without a comprehensive, responsible plan from the president. We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States."
His Republican counterpart, Senator Mitch McConnell, faulted Obama for announcing an "arbitrary timeline" to close Guantanamo by next January. Many of the detainees' home countries in Europe won't take them, he said yesterday, and "among those who have been released, about 12 percent of them have returned to the battlefield. . . . It makes you wonder why we're closing it in the first place."
Senator John McCain of Arizona, Obama's presidential rival, agrees with closing Guantanamo, but said on the Senate floor yesterday that Obama has bungled the issue. "The lack of a comprehensive, well-thought-out plan led to a predictable political backlash on Guantanamo," McCain said. "Instead of unifying Americans behind a plan that keeps us safe and honors our values, the administration's course of action has unified the opposition to moving forward."
Guantanamo, located on a US Navy base in Cuba, was set up in late 2001 to house Al Qaeda suspects, Taliban fighters, and "enemy combatants" swept up by US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The camp, which at its peak housed more than 600 detainees, was the target of dozens of lawsuits by human rights activists alleging that the government mistreated the inmates, conducted abusive interrogations, and denied them guaranteed Geneva Conventions rights as prisoners of war.
Caroline Frederickson, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office, said she and others on the left believe that the White House and Democrats are reacting to Republican fearmongering about terrorists on US soil.
Any legitimate terror suspect, she said, would almost certainly be held in remote, high-security "supermax" federal prisons, which are already home to convicted terrorists like British shoe bomber Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"That's what these prisons are designed for," she said.
But Jim Phillips, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Obama must set aside his campaign rhetoric and make a pragmatic decision on Guantanamo, knowing that the consequences could result in another horrific attack on the nation. The president, he suggested, may have submitted a subpar plan knowing Congress would turn him down. "The notion that you're going to placate your [political] friends by closing Guantanamo, that's never going to work," said Phillips.
Nevertheless, the Pentagon said yesterday that it still plans to follow the president's orders and shut down the Guantanamo prison by January as Obama has ordered. But Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell said that at least some funding needs to be passed now or else it would be "exceedingly difficult" to meet Obama's target date.
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42 Comments so far
Show AllHa! This is cute.
Not buying Obama's little charade with the Dems here.
Bomber now has the cover he needed to keep Gitmo running at full tilt torture.
Definitely getting Bushier than Bush, and way more dangerous.
His ability to turn a lie into truth is a trait of the gifted narcissist.
FreePressMyAss
That was one of the stupidest comments I've ever read on CD. Obama "Bushier than Bush". It's very obvious what your doing. Go back to your GOP Progressive Infiltration and Disruption Group. Your too obvious and your tactics won't work.
Your level of intelligence is what I expect from the GOP....pathetic.
GITMO will close under Obama. That alone makes him a hero to progressives all over the world.
You Lesser Evilists, Dem Party Apologists are so naive, when are you waking up to reality? Obama a hero to progressives? That almost made me spit out my coffee. Obama's not only Bushier than Bush, but he's also covering and protecting his crimes. Can you answer me why? Why's Obama protecting Bush?
Why does Obama want Military Tribunals for the detainees who "ALLEGEDLY" confessed to planning 9/11 after years of torture? How did those detainees get thermite into World Trade Center#7 and bring it down?
In a military tribunal, those questions don't get asked.
Bernie Madoff pleads guilty and there is no trial. What Israeli agencies did he and AIG's Greenbergs fund? What was Bernie's relationship to Larry Silverstein? Those questions don't get asked.
Why would Obama put the General who supervised the secret detention camps and torture at those camps as head of The Afghan WAR?
Why would Obvama support Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Drug War Lord, to be Hamid Karzai's CO-Leader?
No, I am tired of the word "Insurgent" and the people who use it. The United States is illegally occupying another country for falsified reasons.....The People of that country have a RIGHT to defend themselves against an INVASION force.
Obama is just following orders and "The Carter Doctrine". Too bad, he is willing to bankrupt the country fighting the "Never Ending Wars" for Zbigniew and Henry and their groups.
Dj_Die-O-Stepford whoever you are.
You're a real scream!
Such indignance.
Obama's closing Gitmo. Yeah, sure.
Check back when you return to planet eath.
Dude! Obama is a wolf in sheep's clothes. Gitmo will not close in Obama's 8 years in the White House. Nor will Obama restore our civil rights back the Clinton era! Obama is Bush light! Obama may be worse than Bush because he pretends to care about progerssive issues but it's all an act; an evil one at that. Stop drinking the cool- aid.
The Democrats are just as retarded as the Republicans when it comes to foreign policy. Instead of being the land of the free home of the brave, this country has ended up being land of the growing poor and oppressed home of the rising cowardly and ignorants ! No wonder GOD IS PUNISHING AMERICA TO ETERNAL DAMNATION !!!!
Obama didn't take a hit, this is exactly how he planned. Now he's got the excuse he needs.
The left needs to make sure that this scoundrel's a one termer. At least we'll have a clear enemy with a Republican in the White House, not a fake ally who stabs us in the back at every opportunity.
Obysmal never intended to close Guantanamo. He never intended to do most of the things he said he would do during the campaign. He is nothing more than an interchangeable, well greased stainless steel belted part of the USA's thoroughly incompetent, arrogant and immoral political machine. He is the walking, living, breathing exemplar of the relentless and eternally cheerful corruption that is current civic life in these United States.
I love "Obysmal." He really is.
I have always wondered that if it's true that you are what you eat--how come "America Home of the Brave" eats sooo..much chicken?
And battery-raised chicken at that, shot full of more chemicals than Rush Limbaugh.
A favorite saying my my long-ago youth was that "bullies are always cowards." I guess this is true for nations as well as schoolboys.
Rainborowe
-President Obama's lack of a detailed plan to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison
I got it! He said he wanted to close Guantanamo, right? Ta da! welcome to Tanguanamo! You see, I just switched the letters around! I can keep the gulag running, while technically keeping Obama's vague election promise! Hey, I know it is not rocket science, but if this Obama chap can fool you guys with "hope" and "change" it is worth a shot, right?
I called Schumers office just now and told the staff that I was SHOCKED that the vote was 90 to 6 not to support Obama in a small amount of money to close Guantanamo.
We have the biggest prisons with the most poured concrete and the most jailers in the world-- we have no problem locking up hundreds and hundreds more - totally safe.
This is underestimating the public by politicians who are cowards and spineless and I am SHOCKED that these politicians think that the whole country is full of cowards.
CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN!!!! Capitol Switch board is 202-225-3121
Calling Congess makes no difference. Zero impact!
This is a charade...
Gitmo could be closed with an executive order if Broke OweBombya really wanted to...
It does not take tens of millions $$$ of additional funding to close Gitmo...
It can be allocated from the half trillion war funding bill Congress just passed...
This whole "my hands are tied" routine is bunk... and predictable...
Ah, but the fear factor facade is pricele$$ …
People are more willing to believe the veracity of Global Terror, if we keep repeating the fake narrative about thousands of potentially deadly and virulently violent adversaries, that all want to kill us in our sleep, that can never be let go -- because they will come after us,
… and keep on coming … endlessly.
Of course, we must continue to torture them and make them ( and their families ) suffer more and more ( for literally no reason ), because that makes us feel morally superior, in control of our lives, and militarily endlessly sea-to-shinning-sea Omnipotent.
God has so Blessed America, see how he sent all of these terrorists to Gitmo …
I'm happy now, that it all makes so much $ense ( ¢ents ).
Congress routinely approves hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars -- even TRILLIONS -- for bank bailouts and war without asking for any accountability or "exit strategy." All of a sudden, they want a plan. If that is their standard, they should withhold all funds for the current wars/occupations until there is a clear plan for "victory" or an exit strategy. Don't hold your breath.
question: If you have a prisoner who wants to kill Americans, where would you like him to be-- in your own jail or ship him to another country and let them decide when to release or not release him....???
A new twist on the saying: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. May be some wisdom in that.
But, being who we are, we're looking for someone else to take ownership of the messes we've made.
Aren't you forgetting something? None of those guys has even been charged, much less tried and found guilty of anything. All that has been done is to torture them in the hope that they'd confess to a link between Saddam and Osama and give Bu$hCo the excuse to invade Iraq. Again, Obummer is carrying Georgie's lunch pail for him and the prisoners at Guantanamo are paying the price for what at Nuremberg was called "waging an agressive war"--and warranted the death penalty.
Rainborowe
Exactly. All this talk of not wanting them in our prisons, which are actually for people who have had the benefit (?) of our legal system.
I would just stop paying the rent and mail Fidel the keys as I leave.
Let Cuba figure out what to do with our mess.
That's the good ol' American spirit!
question: If you have a prisoner who wants to kill Americans, where would you like him to be-- in your own jail or ship him to another country and let them decide when to release or not release him....???
Since you double-posted this, I get another response.
Some of those prisoners in Gitmo were probably falsely arrested and given no habeas corpus, so there is a flaw in your analogy. Some of those prisoners had no animus toward the US before. I think it's safe to say now that ALL of those prisoners would like to kill Americans, their captors, their torturers, their nemesis.
That's what we own now, so yeah, bring 'em here. More chickens coming home to roost.
Closing Getmo is just a smoke screen. It doesn't hold a candle to the brutality at Camp Nama run by General Stanley McKrystal. Established in 2004, Camp Nama, which once was one Saddam's military bases at Baghdad International Airport, was converted into a top-secret detention center by US Special Ops forces, where officials brutally tortured detainees. Placards posted on walls included "NO BLOOD, NO FOUL." According to one Pentagon official who worked there, "the reality is, there were no rules there." One detainee said he was "forced to strip and punched in the spine until he fainted, put in front of an air conditioner while water was poured on him, and kicked in the stomach until he vomited." Task Force 6-26 is part of a larger group under the Joint Special Operations Command, a group of 1,000 military elites who answer to no one except the Vice-President's Office (the group originally was formed by Dick Cheney) and is assigned the task of assassinating "high-value" targets in the Middle East and Central and South America. Some of the serious accusations against Task Force 6-26 have been reported by NBC, the Washington Post, and The New York Times. In 2004, the CIA and FBI even expressed alarm about some of the military's harsh techniques. Nothing was done.
Source: New York Times March 19, 2006
Apparently, Camp Nama still exists today and has been relocated.
Humbaba is a defeatist and a cynic - many of these are out there with time-- fight being a cynic-- do not become one- keep hope alive.
We are the longest government with Democracy and we have the Constitution and many things in the country are much better than in many other countries
Nobody is perfect but we must fight to improve at all times... Do not give up!!!
metamorph: "We are the longest government with Democracy and we have the Constitution and many things in the country are much better than in many other countries."
Nonsense. Britain's democracy and constitution are much older than those of the United States. And American democracy didn't come near to including everyone until the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s. They never had slavery in Britain, either.
I guess things here are better than in Somalia, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Iraq and a whole lot of Pacific islands that are about to go under water because of the global warming caused mostly by us. So DO lets celebrate our achievements and pat ourselves on the back and thank God we're not French or Spanish or something un-american.
Rainborowe
There is a plan, just not well received.
besides having absolute zero proof that gitmo detainees are terrorists, just wait until the tens of thousands of soldiers from iraq and afghanistan return to the streets of the good ole usa...
"Many of the detainees' home countries in Europe won't take them"
Isn't that against international law?
fugem..just take them to their home countries, and drop them at the border.
George W Bush managed to "Rendition" these guys all across the planet...Barak O Bush ought to at least get them on one flight.
Or..here is a wild idea...just give them free and fair trials under the auspices of the US court system..then, if they are guilty they go to jol for life, if they are found not guilty, they are therefore NOT TERRORISTS.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
"Many of the detainees' home countries in Europe won't take them"
I don't know about international law but it's simply not true. I don't know of a single European country that's refused to take in one of its citizens.
Rainborowe
Until 9/11 is properly and thoroughly investigated and the truth brought to light, gitmo won't go and the real accomplicers won't get the justice they earned and deserve.
This little melodrama being played is one of the small things that gives obama some credibility for trying to do what is thought as the correct thing to do(and it actually is), with a cast of players that play the role of a 'conscientious' protector versus the bad guys trying to maintain the status quo all the while that protection is for the previous administraion perpetrators.
I fear and regret that I will not be alive by the time people really dig into this event of 9/11 and all the mitigating circumstances that are involved which means investigating the neocon think tanks just to see what plans or patterns come from those places and the 'big boss' political crime families that are involved also because this current generation of 'citizens' are just too vegged out to cope with the reality of what is more probable a false flag attack on this country and the theft of the treasury, the underlying reason for it.
My server is messed up.
My server is messed up....
Having Windstream as a server on dial-up is like running in jello.
So true that a new investigation of 9/11 is absolutely necessary despite any consequences. We cannot let it go the way of the JFK investigation. NYC is working on a ballot initiative..Please help support it if you have a few bucks to spare.
Have you checked out this article re one of the major motives behind 9/11......?.....................if not, prepare to have your mind blown.....
http:/www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/
Collateral_Damage_911.pdf
Methinks this is just the way Obama wanted it. Now he doesn't have to close Gitmo down and can blame Congress.
Bush never had problems getting his laws passed by the conservative Democrats.
When will we learn never to vote for conservatives?
Oregoncharles
"...the White House and Democrats are reacting to Republican fearmongering about terrorists on US soil."
Exactly my prediction. The Democrats and what's left of the Republican Party will keep this up for ever. The Republicans are in the toilet and everybody knows it. Who cares what they're afraid of. Their party is half dead, they're mostly all nuts. The duopoly is making this up. It's a scam. It's theater (as was the election).
They think the American people are gullible. hmmmm.
Obama and defenders of closing down Guantanamo need to prove that they stand for something other than furthering the agenda of the empire, you know, like he did during the campaign, to convince all the Guantanamo naysayers, you know, like he did during the campaign. It worked! If he doesn't make this a fight, it's because he knew all along, the game plan is designed long before we ever get wind of it.
Here's how it is.
"Achmed, you were delivered to us by bounty hunters, who were paid their thousand dollars for you in 2003. Despite your claim of innocence, after several years of intense interrogation, you did admit to being a terrorist after multiple waterboardings and electrical stimulation of your genitals.
"We, personally feel that that is sufficient to lock you away, but unfortunately we cannot use your testimony."
"No, you cannot see any evidence we may have. All those records are sealed due to National Security and are not available to judges, lawyers, or anybody but the Military Commission's prosecutors.
"Since everything relating to your case is sealed, we determine that you are dangerous and will be locked up for the rest of your natural life, without trial.
"We are the government and we know best."
So that is how it goes in the Obamanation. Bushwhacked again!