Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
US Attorney General 'Not Sure' if Guantánamo Will Shut by 2013
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday he was not sure if the prison holding terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba would be closed by the end of President Barack Obama's first term.
"I don't know," Mr Holder told a House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee. "We will do all that we can."
President Obama believes the prison serves as a recruiting tool for anti-American militants (Photo: GETTY)
Mr Holder declined to offer any new details about plans on how the administration will prosecute terrorism suspects held at the Guantánamo Bay prison, but he said repeatedly that the administration still planned to close the facility.
The U.S. Congress has barred the Obama administration from bringing any detainees to U.S. soil for prosecution or detention, significantly hampering the effort to close the prison.
Obama administration officials have said the prison serves as a recruiting tool for anti-American militants and has made it hard to negotiate with some U.S. allies to take in detainees who have been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Republicans and even some of Obama's fellow Democrats have opposed bringing terrorism suspects to U.S. soil for prosecution in traditional federal courts and instead want them tried in special military commissions at the Guantánamo prison.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
15 Comments so far
Show All"Republicans and even some of Obama's fellow Democrats have opposed bringing terrorism suspects to U.S. soil for prosecution in traditional federal courts and instead want them tried in special military commissions at the Guantánamo prison."
Why? Because they can't use evidence obtained by torture, the only evidence they have, in federal courts. So if they go the federal courts route everybody walks.
"So if they go the federal courts route everybody walks."
______________________________
Keep a good thought. I agree that this seems to be an insurmountable obstacle for those who are determined to finally formally convict each and every hapless captive of the Global War on a Noun* in order to save Imperial Amerikan face and satisfy honor.
But I'll bet the ranch that if push comes to shove, the high-minded pros in the Amerikan jurisprudence biz will come up with "workarounds" to produce and nominally justify the required draconian sentences.
* Aka "the worst of the worst". Is there a more pristine textbook example of "projection"?
"We cannot allow the world's worst weapons to fall into the hands of the world's worst leaders" comes to mind.
0 can always promise to close Gitmo to get re-elected.
Yeah, I wouldn't put it past Barry, but the con may not work this time.
three days before his re-election nixon "ended" the Vietnam caper by signing the same treaty which was unacceptable at the beginning of his first term.
never underestimate the stupidity of the voters.
It looks like another episode of "Good Cop, Bad Cop." In this episode poor Barry and his trusty side-kick, Eric are working against insurmountable odds as they fight the good fight against those evil Republicans.
If this sounds like bad TV, that's because it is. Barry and Eric want to close Gitmo, but they can't because ________ (fill in the blank--"The Republicans are just too powerful", "We must balance the budget with shared sacrifice", or my personal favorite--"We must fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them here." ).
God damn AmeriKKKa!
Amazing.
In 2008, we had a presidential campaign in which closing Guantanamo and ending torture was a non-issue. Both candidate Obama and candidate McCain vowed to do it if elected.
Suddenly "Republicans and even some of Obama's fellow Democrats" in the House and Senate decide to override that decision. Gitmo remains open. By the end of 2009, the issue of what to do with the detainee inmates of this notorious military prison complex had magically become an intractable problem.
What ever happened to unitary executive branch powers and the Commander-in-Chief's primacy in controlling the US military establishment when that presidential authority could be put to constructive use rather than destructive use?
Bill from Saginaw
This is old news - really old news. And, of course, it's all illegal. Obama, Congress and even the U.S. Supreme Court are refusing to follow and enforce U.S. habeas corpus laws, long established from legal traditions dating back to England's Magna Carta of the 13th century. So, it's really laughable that Eric Holder (the guy who supported Chiquita Banana's right-wing death squad funding) gets a question about Guantanamo from Congress. What a bunch of criminals.
Essentially, we've got legal process with no meaning. It's tyranny, but they take time to critique each other's table manners.
I can answer that question for Eric. You will pretend to want to close it but know you won't! " I don't know". What a lie! You know. " We will do what we can". Another lie, unless you left out the last part of your lying answer: We will do what we can...to keep Gitmo open past 2013!
Are there any "new" detainees in Gitmo? The saps there now have been out of the terrorism loop for years. What can they offer in terms of "actionable" information? We have a wonderful new prison in Illinois, but everyone is so afraid the detainees will either get out (where would they go in their orange jumpsuits?; they don't speak English) or attract compatriots to rural Illinois. This whole thing is a sick joke. And an insult to whatever jurisprudence is left in the US.
Another campaign promise worth shit. Still waiting for the Pres to march with the workers.
The detention barracks at Guantanamo will be closed after the last inmate dies.
Another broken promise by Obama? I am getting accustomed to this.