That’s what this New York Times article seems to be saying, if only by its attitude.
Any thoughts on what’s “really” going on, if indeed it’s not what’s being said here?
I didn’t read the article, but I would assume that when they finally release the US citizens who are innocent, there’s going to be a shitstorm of lawsuits.
What’s “really” going on is Bush isn’t President any more, therefore the bitching about Gitmo has stopped as has the motivation to close it. Duh.:rolleyes:
They’ll probably be forced to sign a pledge to not sue or talk about what happened to them before release; or just be shot in the head and dropped into an ocean.
Unless I’m grossly mistaken, nobody at Gitmo is American. They all got due process. It was the random people kidnapped by bounty hunters from outside the States who got thrown in Gitmo and would have lots of reason to sue. Of course, they won’t be able to do so, so that will be the end of that.
I can picture it as a latter-day Spandau, kept running, mostly forgotten by the public, until the last prisoner dies.
Unlikely. The Red Cross has access to the detainees and since the Pentagon has published a list of all of the names of the detainees there, “disappearing” them is not an option. Besides, if the detainees were released into either their home country or any third country, there is no way the US could enforce any promise from them not to talk to anyone, including the media, about their imprisonment.
Obama has finally realized that many of the detainees are ruthless killers…25 ones released to Saudi Arabia are now back in Al Queda. So, he has a tiger by the tail. Many of the others cannot be sent back to their home countries-they face immediate execution. Morocco will take theirs back-but they will not guarantee that their returnees won’t be executed.
Welcome to the world, Obama.
Well, lets calculate the value of a “shitstorm”. I will assume that there are 1,000 lawsuits per US citizen in Gitmo.
1,000 x 0 (the number of US citizens in Gitmo) = 0
Therefore, 1 shitstorm = 0.
Doesn’t our lease with Cuba run out some time in the 2030s?
Yes, the general reaction to this subject now on the left seems to be a harmony of embarrassed throat-clearing.
But let’s face it: this is not unique to Obama. Every single candidate has the luxury of saying about his incumbent opponent, “Why hasn’t he fixed X? If elected, I will fix X!”
Once elected, of course, the problems with fixing X become apparent. I choose to believe that Obama genuinely planned to close the facility, and is only now realizing the pitfalls surrounding that plan.
So… he didn’t lie, but the truth changed.
Anyone who’s interested in something beyond throat-clearing may wish to check out the columns of Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald, who’s written on this topic and has also addressed many other failures of the Obama administration to live up to its campaign promises.
According to wiki:
I guess one of the legal sticking points is whether the post-revolutionary government can be legally obligated to honor treaties it doesn’t want, ones that a previous government signed.
No, it didn’t.
And anyway, this doesn’t excuse him nor the rest of the left who were bitching non-stop about Gitmo when Bush was President. Now that their guy is in they’re all but silent on the issue and their hypocrisy makes me want to puke.
I think part of the problem is that Obama has realized that if he tries the GITMO detainees in civilian courts, he probably doesn’t have enough admissible evidence to convict. Apparently he considers a “not guilty” verdict unacceptable. Likewise, just releasing the detainees is politically unacceptable. So he says nothing, and they sit there. I suspect they are going to sit there until they die, or possibly until a lame duck POTUS bites the bullet and releases them once he has nothing else to lose in the political arena.
Wow, Saudi Arabia signed them up with an organization that probably doesn’t really exist, and whose #1 goal if it even is real is to destroy Saudi Arabia? And not one but twenty-five members of the secret terrorist legion of doom decided to drop a friendly note to the US government announcing exactly where their post-graduation careers took them? That’s surely plausible and a great reason for you to abandon your status as a human being to support torture!
Well, there’s two things to keep in mind:
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They aren’t all silent on the issue.
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Congress isn’t allowing Obama to close Gitmo, so his hands are tied, to an extent.
Now, one might ask, why did he promise to close it since he knew he had to go through Congress to do so? Simple answer is that all presidential candidates make promises that assumes they will have Congress on their side. Doesn’t excuse the behavior, but it does explain it-- they all do it, because they feel they have to get elected.
Undoing the legacy of the Bush administration isn’t quite as simple as making a presidential declaration.
Most are. And I see no movement on the part of the left to pressure Congress (run by the Democrats) to allow Obama to close it.
Why? Because Bush isn’t President, that’s why.
Possibly, but I don’t think we could prove so either way. Unless you want to research every writer on “the left” and get back to us on that…
I agree that it doesn’t appear to be as big an issue these days.
I’m sure that’s part of it.
It’s only “the left” who believes in the Constitution anymore, is it? :dubious:
No, the general reaction still includes outrage and embarrassment that our government is continuing this abuse. Indignation over Obama’s reversal of position is only a secondary part of it. Perhaps it takes a willingness to see more than “liberal hypocrisy” to realize that.