Yeah, because real men like to torture naked prisoners.
I am really pissed off at Obama about this, just as I was at his slowness in getting rid of DADT. On the other hand, he did get the latter done in such a way that it’s pretty much a non-issue. I hope he does the same with GITMO.
I don’t understand the OP’s logic though. He’s outraged that the left is not more outraged against a position that he opposes. Does that mean he would support the left if it pilloried Obama over this?
“Yeah, I’m with you guys for denouncing Obama on a position that I agree with him”.
No one on the left has changed their mind and thinks that now that Obama is in it’s OK to keep people in GITMO without status as either a POW or criminal. Compare that with the deficits, which somehow became an issue the day Obama was sworn in.
While I’ll grant that the OP is doing little more than going “Nah nah” and not really seeking a debate, it’s worth noting that there was something like 6 years of constant, continued, heated wrath directed at Bush for policies like this on the board. The number of threads which made up this number was far greater than 10, and probably involved nearly everyone who is replying against the OP.
It is a pretty clear turnaround to be vociferous for so long and so steadily, just to be able to have one brief moment afterward where you go, “Now, Mr. President, we’d really rather you didn’t do this.” And then be passively unhappy. As the people who constitute his power base, you’re fairly tacitly allowing him to do this.
And what exactly are we to do? You are confusing resignation and contempt with acceptance; judging from Obama’s performance, it appears that America has become evil and corrupt beyond redemption. After 8 years of Bush and a a huge backlash against him, the best we can get is someone perhaps slightly less amoral and right wing than Bush was. It appears that what someone said in another thread is true; that the best you can hope for in a President is one who pretends to disapprove of torture then does it anyway.
So why even try? America is behaving vilely, and will continue to behave vilely, and no protest or argument will change that in any way except for the worse.
Is there a massive, ongoing protest outside of the Whitehouse against his treatment of foreign prisoners? Is there weekly news denouncing his regime as torturers and thugs? Is there any particular reason not to continue hammering away at the government for what they are doing?
This is tacit acceptance. There’s simply no getting around it. If you truly cared, you’d be out there doing your best to force him to do what you elected him to do. Make him feel like he’s going to get booted from office in two years if he doesn’t follow through on his promises and he’ll start looking at the problem a lot harder.
Was there when Bush was in office? No. Most people didn’t care then any more than they care now.
Because it will make no difference.
And? “Boot him from office”, and you’ll just get another interchangeable right wing thug, who’ll do just what Bush did and what Obama is doing. You are recommending that we do the same exact thing that got us Obama in the first place. He’s made it quite clear he doesn’t care in the slightest what he was “elected to do”, just like the rest of the Democrats have.
Evidently you did. Shortly after getting elected Obama said the prison would be shut down by the end of 2009. That didn’t happen: the public and Congress were initially supportive but nobody wanted to take the first step, particularly given the horrifying possibility of prisoners being put in a jail in the same state as you. :eek: No further movement was made and the prison still exists. The outrage is very old news at this point.
Bush does it? “He should be impeached/turned over to the Hague for prosecution/burned at the stake.”
Obama does it? “Well, it’s too bad, but I am voting for him anyway. And it’s Bush’s fault.”
The only reason the Usual Suspects cared about Gitmo was to try to get a Republican out and a Democrat into the White House. Now that it has achieved that purpose, they no longer care. All that stuff about human rights is a smokescreen.
OK, some of the more floridly insane use Gitmo to fulminate on the EEEEEBILSS of the US and so on, but you can’t debate what should be medicated.
Obama should clearly have had the lot executed and closed Gitmo first thing he did on entering office. US workers shouldn’t have to work and pay tax so that terrorist scum can sit around and scratch their asses in sunny Cuba. So yes, Obama Fail.
Way to ignore pretty much every response in this thread but to be fair, when you live in an echo chamber it’s hard to hear what anyone outside it says.
Personally I’m furious about the continued use of Gitmo. But I’m stuck agreeing with Der Trihs about the realistic options: in a choice between the well-intentioned but ineffectual candidate and the actively malevolent one, I’ll go for the ineffectual one. If the Dems put up a genuinely leftwing candidate with balls in 2012, my vote will likely go that way. But they won’t, and I sure as hell am not going to vote for someone further right.
I’m also bewildered by the “pansy” reference in the OP. What are you, in junior high in 1983 or something?
Well I for one am pissed. And for the record I am not a Democrat. I’m a registered Republican that leans Libertarian. Gitmo is a stain on our country and the sooner it is closed and the prisoners regularized as either prisoners of war or placed in the criminal justice system the better.
But I have to say, so far Obama is doing fairly well on his promises. According to the Obamameter, out of 500 promises made he has kept 134 and broken 38, with the others being “compromised,” “stalled,” or “in the works.” An 80% rating isn’t bad. And it really isn’t bad when you consider he inherited two intractable wars and the worst economy in nearly a century.
Is he what I would like in a president? Not really. But really there is little doubt in my mind that he has been better than McCain would have been. I have some hope Obama may be able to close Gitmo eventually. Just like he was slow on DADT and DOMA. And I have no trust at all anymore in the Republican party on civil rights issues. For all the party’s worship of the constitution, they seem to forget the bill or rights, excepting the second amendment of course.
I wish to believe that every politician believes that he will at least attempt to follow through on what they promise, so barring further evidence I’ll say that he was stymied by it. The cynic in me says that he simply used that as a way to garner votes and had no intention of following through, but I’ve been working hard at stifling that instinct.
Based on his background and other statements, I do think he wants it shut down. It sucks that more shortsighted political considerations have made that impossible but I guess most people never gave a crap about this issue - they said they wanted the prison shut down when their neighbors said it, but as soon as they realized the prisoners had to go somewhere it turned into a classic NIMBY issue. It’s probably within Obama’s power to release all of them, but that would be political suicide and a security problem. Even getting trials for these people has been absurdly difficult.
I don’t know if he expected to be able to do this, but I think he would if he could.
But I’ve griped about this over and over on this board. People often think the president is like a king and can just do whatever he wants. Congress holds the purse strings, and has the power to tell the president what to do. The president of the US isn’t even like the president of a company. Congress has the real power, as it should.
The Pedant is relatively apolitical, actually. I’m cynical of all mankind; Jew and Gentile alike; pansy-ass liberals and paranoid right wingers, and spenders of all ilk, be they do-gooders via social programs or do-gooders via military might.
This particular action by Mr Obama is remarkable in light of his campaign promises. One cannot fault a predecessor for this. If a predecessor establishes a summer camp for raping women, and one runs on a campaign to stop it, it’s not much of a defense to perpetuate the camp and then plead that the last guy started the mess.
However my contempt in this instance is not so much for Mr Obama as it is for the naivety of the voters who actually thought due process in American courts is the right alternative for Gitmo. It reflects a remarkable innocence about terrorism, and a fundamental non-comprehension that on occasion bad people need to be shot where you find them instead of bringing them due process. When your principles don’t allow that, there isn’t any alternative except permanent incarceration without due process.
I’m not really debating that here; I’m just surprised that there hasn’t been more outrage over this very practical decision. When Mr Bush made his ridiculous foray into Iraq and Afghanistan, there was plenty of outrage (Including from me, as it happens. You cannot fix Islamic societies with military invasions.). And when Mr Obama campaigned to close Gitmo, my sense was that the support for the promise followed from a core belief it was obviously correct to do so and that to not do so would reduce a leader to the moral status of…well, of Mr Bush. I haven’t found the response to maintaining Gitmo commensurate to the prior outrage.