Obama to close Gitmo despite setbacks from previous administrations

I don't think he believed that the GOP would absolutely oppose everything he tried to do, no matter how reasonable. He held on to the belief that the GOP might work with him on something for far too long, particularly given the stated goal of the GOP was to make him a one term president.

Again, their goal was NOT to improve the economy, take measures to prevent another financial crisis, or help out the people on Main Street, their goal was to oppose everything Obama wanted to do without question.

You're the assclown, Obama was just naive enough to believe that the GOP might consider working with the president, just as every Congress in history has.

 

The difference between you and I is that I understand horse trading, logrolling, and all of the strategic voting engaged in by congresspeople. It isn't even that I don't like this particular vote, this entire subtopic of conversation began because mojo"man" didn't seem to understand that Gitmo hasn't been closed in large part because the GOP blocked it. Nothing you or he have said changes that one, simple fact.

 

You're wrong, it's not in large part due to the Republicans, it's closed in large part because it's not a popular policy. It's a policy that this president can't even sell to his own party.....but of course a partisan hack like yourself would blame Republicans....

If the president had the votes in his own party, he could have fulfilled the campaign promise and gotten it closed in the first month on the job. Of course there wasn't the support from his own party to get it done then, and there isn't now. Just like before, Democrats will continue to side with Republicans when it comes to blocking this move. True bipartisanship.

This president often tries to force policy that he can't even sell to the whole of his own damn party and when it fails to get any traction or is blocked, there is whining about the Republicans. If Obama was pushing better policy, he'd get more passed.

It's just a sign as to how out of touch he is, he needs Republican support to get anything done, but he pushes forward with things he couldn't even get through a Democrat controlled congress....it's just what happens when you are an ideologue instead of a politician.

 

I think his approach was sound, but didn't work out. People were going to be uncomfortable with the idea, but if he could stand up boldly and leverage some of his honeymoon credit, maybe people would follow his leadership and trust him to do what needed doing.

What ended up happening, unfortunately, was that Republicans opposed him on this and brought up safety concerns that resonated very strongly with voters. Democrats saw that they could imperil their own re-election by supporting the president in this, so they didn't stick their necks out.

So, sure it was bipartisan. It was the will of the people. It was the majority. But, Gitmo is still a vehicle for the violation of the civil rights of its detainees. The point of the Bill of Rights is precisely to protect the individual from the tyranny of the majority. Tyranny of the majority is what we've done here. Our citizenry didn't and doesn't have the testicular fortitude to do the moral thing to render to terrorists the rights that are guaranteed to everyone, so we've willfully ignored our Constitution and done an evil thing out of fear. I suppose our history is littered with lapses like this, but I can't really support it, or brush it under the rug of bipartisanship or democracy and say it's okay because Congress passed a law. Sometimes it takes leadership to get people to do the right thing. Obama tried to provide some, and if Congressional leadership would have followed the American people would have too. Congressional leadership instead shrank from the challenge and the opportunity was lost.

I'm interested to see what Obama thinks he can do about it now. I don't think he can close it. I don't think Clinton can close it. A Republican president might be able to, if he was so inclined.

 

This is where I stopped reading, since you apparently chose to ignore what I wrote.

I vote Libertarian and am the furthest thing from a "partisan hack" that you have ever encountered.

 

What a pity, had you read more, you might have learned something.....I mean, probably not given your posting history, but it could have happened.

 

All you did was repeat the same bullsh!t without considering anything I wrote. I doubt you have the capacity to teach me anything useful, but that is just based on your posting history.

 

All you did was make excuses for why there was almost no support of Obama's plan and then you blamed it on the Republicans.....exactly like a Democrat partisan would. You may claim to be a Libertarian, but I've never met a Libertarian that is an Obama nut hugger before and that seems to be exactly what you are.

You keep glossing over the fact that if the president really wanted to get Gitmo closed, he had a majority in both houses of congress when he promised to get it done and he didn't. You might make excuses for this, but it was clear that he didn't have the votes to get it done and he wasn't going to waste political capital on it. He still doesn't have the votes to get it done only now I guess we're blaming the Republicans for it.....pretty typical.

 

No, I provided an accurate description of the situation.

Again, I vote Libertarian, didn't vote for Obama either time, and dearly wish that a Republican would come along who is sane enough to capture my vote as George HW Bush did.

It is apparent that, as observed by a poster in the SOTU thread, you are engaging in projection. I have plenty of differences with Obama's policies, while you come off as a slightly less fervent GOP "nut hugger" than bigpuffery or mojo"man".

I didn't gloss over ****. I made the (again, accurate) observation that during the six weeks where he had a filibuster proof majority in Congress, he chose to pursue consequential policy changes, naively believing that he might eventually get a break from the unprecedented obstructionism by the GOP.

He didn't waste political capital on it, without doubt or question, because there were much more consequential bills to pass.

The only thing I'm blaming the Republicans for is their unprecedented intransigence when it comes to this president and his proposals. This blame is deserved and earned.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">DOD announces transfer of Gitmo detainee Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed Al Sawah to Bosnia. Member of AQ who developed IEDs to use v commercial planes</p>&mdash; Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/690220723391107072">January 21, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">New from <a href="https://twitter.com/AP">@AP</a>: Former Guantanamo detainee among 4 arrested in Spain, Morocco for Islamic State ties: <a href="https://t.co/qbcgPFwngy">https://t.co/qbcgPFwngy</a></p>&mdash; Tim Scott (@SenatorTimScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenatorTimScott/status/702182141518479360">February 23, 2016</a></blockquote>
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Overall I don't believe in the death penalty. But these few remaining prisoners I would say just take them out. These are horrible horrible monsters that if we're still out there would cause suffering and death to anyone and everyone.

 

What a brilliant suggestion.

I'm sure turning it from a limbo-like prison camp into an extra-judicial extermination camp would work out really well. What could possibly go wrong?

 

Here's the problem. Considering our track record of accidentally imprisoning innocent people with little or no evidence against them at Guantanamo, it becomes almost impossible to say something like that with certainty.

The Bush administration put the future administrations in an awful position. You can't round up people on questionable and many times inadmissible evidence and then find a clean solution.

Also Obama isn't saying let everyone free from Guantanamo Bay. He's saying move them to the US and start the process of actual criminal proceedings.

 

You're being sarcastic, but I think it would work pretty well. You certainly wouldn't have terrorists returning to the battlefield anymore.

 

People seem to think Gitmo is The Cube, housing all the world's supervillains. if we let them out, we'll need to call The Avengers to put a stop to them. They're just people. If they're ever freed, they'd probably return to the battlefield and kill people. But, we already have jihadis doing that stuff. It's not a game changer. I might compromise my civil rights to fight supervillains, but not regular people.

 

Conventional US prisons and justice systems can't hold terrorists.* It's a proven fact. It's just too dangerous.

*(Not including the 1000's who have resided/reside in the federal penal system)

 

So they are transferring the ones they actually have admissible evidence on? Dumping the ones that they don't on other countries? I didn't read anything in the plan about trials just supermax prisons, how is that legal.

 

how is it not legal?

 

I guess I didn't know you could let people rot in supermax without a trial.