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Plan to Close Guantánamo Now Delayed Until 2011 at the Earliest

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by MojoMan, Dec 22, 2009.

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  1. CometsWin

    CometsWin Breaker Breaker One Nine

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    He's quite obviously trying to follow through. If he's underestimated anything it's Congressional stupidity. The Congress basically gave Bush carte blanche to create dangerous situations with no exit strategy and Obama has to fight tooth and nail to clean these up.
     
    #21 CometsWin, Dec 23, 2009
  2. GladiatoRowdy

    GladiatoRowdy Member

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    He is following through, it is just going to take longer than he thought.
     
    #22 GladiatoRowdy, Dec 23, 2009
  3. Bogey

    Bogey Member

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    I don't see the need to close Guantanamo anyways. If the issue is torture, then stop the torture, why the need to move the prisoners?
     
    #23 Bogey, Dec 23, 2009
  4. GladiatoRowdy

    GladiatoRowdy Member

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    At this point, Guantanamo is a symbol of the torture that was allowed to happen.
     
    #24 GladiatoRowdy, Dec 23, 2009
  5. MojoMan

    MojoMan Member

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    Perhaps quite a bit longer. This idea to move them to the United States was apparently the big epiphany of Obama and his team to solve this apparently intractable problem. If this Congress is adamantly opposed to this bright idea, then what future Congress is likely to be in favor of it? The fact is, this is not going to happen at all.

    So, we are waiting for the Obama team to come up with another idea for what to do with these prisoners. We are not willing to house them on U.S. soil, and other countries will not accept them on their soil. What to do, what to do....

    Obama needs to learn to think before he speaks. Unfortunately, he does this a lot. It is not becoming of the President of the United States to run around making commitments that he cannot keep just to win a brief round of applause from his supporters in the cheap seats, only to have to walk it back later.
     
    #25 MojoMan, Dec 23, 2009
  6. Dave_78

    Dave_78 Member

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    Mission Accomplished
     
    #26 Dave_78, Dec 23, 2009
  7. juicystream

    juicystream Member

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    The deadline was a promise. He isn't keeping it.
     
    #27 juicystream, Dec 23, 2009
    Last edited: Dec 23, 2009
  8. MojoMan

    MojoMan Member

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    The initial mission of defeating the Iraqi military and overthrowing Sadaam Hussein was obviously what President Bush was speaking about. If you want to diminish the very impressive work of the US Military on this score, I think that is deplorable. However, as an American under the protection of the U.S. military, you have the right to express your opinion, regardless of how reprehensible that opinion is.
     
    #28 MojoMan, Dec 23, 2009
  9. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    "My answer is: bring 'em on."
     
    #29 SamFisher, Dec 23, 2009
  10. pgabriel

    pgabriel Educated Negro

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    Its really unbelievable, now everyone wants to take this stuff seriously and actually debate. I'm fine with that, but for people to claim that the president isn't following through on promises when he's actually trying to "do it right the first time" is despicable.
     
    #30 pgabriel, Dec 23, 2009
  11. basso

    basso Member
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    it's only being debated because Obama made an issue of it. rather than demagogue-ing the issue, had he kept his mouth shut until he actually knew what the situation in Guantanamo was, there would be no controversy.

    pride goeth before the fall, and all that...
     
    #31 basso, Dec 23, 2009
  12. FranchiseBlade

    FranchiseBlade Member
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    You have no idea that was what Bush was talking to. Bush made the mistake of never explaining what the mission was or having an exit strategy, so there is no way you can claim that was what he was referring to.

    Bush never had a mission.
     
    #32 FranchiseBlade, Dec 23, 2009
  13. pgabriel

    pgabriel Educated Negro

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    you're right, no one cared about guantanamo till obama made an issue out of it.
     
    #33 pgabriel, Dec 23, 2009
  14. MojoMan

    MojoMan Member

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    Obama is making every effort to follow through on commitments that he made on this issue, which were clearly beyond his ability to keep. His initial promise to close GITMO within a year was an 'eyebrow raiser' for those people who had actually been following the complexities associated with this issue, and who were not just foaming at the mouth in a Pavlov's dog type reaction to the Democrat's demagoguery of this issue during the last two campaign seasons.

    President Bush was working to resolve all of the cases of the people currently being detained at GITMO, with an ultimate goal of closing down the detention facility. He had reduced the population of the prison from about 740 prisoners at its high, to under 250 prisoners when Obama took office. He had worked with Congress to develop the system of military commissions for resolving these cases. This is a system which is still intact and expected to be used, modified only by a few small and inconsequential changes made by the Obama administration.

    The goal to close down the GITMO detention facility is a good goal. However, the problem remains what to do with the people being detained there. These difficult problems were well known and widely discussed before Obama even announced he was running for office, not to mention before he took office or made this unwise commitment. Since Barack Obama was a member of the Senate during this period, it seems fair to assume that he was aware of the debate taking place on this topic, and the issues associated with the same.

    So I hope no one is trying to suggest that he did not know or understand the difficulties associated with closing GITMO before he made this commitment. If somehow he did not know, that is truly astonishing. If former Senator Obama did not know, he certainly should have known, and he has no one to blame but himself.
     
    #34 MojoMan, Dec 23, 2009
  15. jo mama

    jo mama Member

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    plus many of the detainees are innocent - many were picked up b/c someone turned them in to collect reward money the u.s. was offering. and how many detainees have been convicted of a crime?

    rounding up people and holding them in a kind of prison-limbo, and in many cases detaining people that are known to be totally innocent seems like something the soviets would have done - not the united states.

    how does this news jibe w/ what obama was saying not even a year ago...

    that and the whole torture thing. the previous administrations criminal, treasonous and unconstitutional behavior will have ramifications for years to come. unfortunately, obama has codified much of what bush did - torture, illegal wiretapping, banker bailouts, government secrecy, guantanamo, ect. feel the change yet?
     
    #35 jo mama, Dec 23, 2009
  16. GladiatoRowdy

    GladiatoRowdy Member

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    The "deadline" was a goal and he is trying to keep it. It is the US Congress that isn't playing along and I don't blame Congress' actions on Obama.
     
    #36 GladiatoRowdy, Dec 23, 2009
  17. GladiatoRowdy

    GladiatoRowdy Member

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    You would be correct if it wasn't for the facts.

    The people delaying progress on this are the people in Congress. Blaming Obama for their inaction is just stupid.
     
    #37 GladiatoRowdy, Dec 23, 2009
  18. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Member

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    YOu mean sort of like how every Republican president since Reagan has said they would end legalized abortion once they got into office?
     
    #38 rocketsjudoka, Dec 23, 2009
  19. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Member

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    And what about Cheney saying we would be out of Iraq within a few years of invading? What about GW Bush saying he was going to get Osama Bin Ladin "Dead or alive"?

    Practically every politician makes promises that aren't kept.
     
    #39 rocketsjudoka, Dec 23, 2009
  20. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Member

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    Its more than that. The idea behind creating the prison at Gitmo was essentially to create a lawless prison. Gitmo was chosen because the previous Admin argued that it was outside of US Sovereignity while at the same time being in a situation where the host country can't enforce its sovereignity so technically no laws apply. This argument has been struck down and prisoners have to be brought into some sort of legal system so the main idea behind Gitmo is unworkable.
     
    #40 rocketsjudoka, Dec 23, 2009
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