White House Still Insisting On Closing Gitmo; But Is Banned From Bringing Prisoners the U.S.

Occupy Gitmo!

AFP reports, “The White House insisted Monday that President Barack Obama was determined to close Guantanamo Bay, despite failing to do so by the war on terror camp's 10th anniversary this week. Obama declared within a few hours of taking office in January 2009 that he would shutter the camp within a year, saying it was used as a recruiting tool for terrorists, and detrimental to US national security. But in the face of deep opposition in Congress to moving inmates to the US mainland and over the idea of holding civil trials for key Al-Qaeda suspects, Obama has failed to live up to his vow. ‘The commitment that the president has to closing Guantanamo Bay is as firm today as it was during the (2008) campaign,’ said White House spokesman Jay Carney.”

But now almost 2 years after the date President Obama pledged Guantanamo would be closed by, the White House still has not presented any detailed plans on where current detainees would go or a coherent strategy to handle with enemy combatants captured on the battlefield.

In November, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “[T]he Executive Orders signed by the President in January 2009 were issued with an eye toward fulfilling Candidate Obama’s campaign promises — rather than after conducting a serious review of sound counterterrorism policy. And now, three years after taking office, the President has had enough firsthand experience dealing with terrorism to know that many of the terrorists held at Guantanamo can’t be sent back to places like Yemen, where they’re likely to return to the fight. But the President’s own Executive Orders have denied our military commanders and our intelligence community the certainty they need when they capture, detain, and interrogate terrorist suspects. His early Executive Orders, for instance, ended the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention program and directed the closing of Guantanamo. The order to close Guantanamo makes little sense.”

Despite this, according to AFP, “Carney said that Obama, top national security officials and senior members of the military still believed that closing Guantanamo was in US interests. ‘We will continue to abide by that commitment and work towards its fulfillment,’ he said.”

The recently signed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) forbids the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to US soil and sharply restricts moving such prisoners to third countries. What action is President planning to go around this ban? Will he violate the law, release all detained terrorists, or .... [your opinion]?

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