Obama promised to close Guantánamo and he lied

Glaucus said:
Or 3) New things come to light that make him change his mind.
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And if he doesn't give a good explanation for why he changed his mind, he is still a liar.

If I say I'm gonna go home and then go straight to bed so I can be rested for the morning, but when I get home I see it's burned to the ground and spent the night gathering my things, am I liar?
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Absurd analogy but let's run with it anyway.
Suppose you're meant to be working through the night and the only reason you were allowed to go home in the first place was because you promised your entire firm that you would go straight to bed.
They have a vote and, based upon your promise they let you go home.
You then turn up the next day without a single bit of you hanging the right way and, as far as they can tell, one of your extremely rich buddies persuaded you to stay out all night at a strip club.
(They've seen this type of behaviour before - the last five guys that had your job were always making promises they didn't keep too, usually because some rich buddy had their ear.)

If you don't assuge them of this misconception then, as far as they are concerned, you are indeed a liar.
 
FOIA suit reveals Guantanamo's 'indefinite detainees'


In January 2010, the task force revealed that it classified 48 Guantanamo captives as dangerous but ineligible for trial because of a lack of evidence, or because the evidence was too tainted.
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Administration officials have through the years described a variety of reasons why the men could not face trial: Evidence against some of the indefinite detainees was too tainted by CIA or other interrogation torture or abuse to be admissible in a court; insufficient evidence to prove an individual detainee had committed a crime; or military intelligence opinions that certain captives had undertaken suicide or other type of terrorist training, and had vowed to engage in an attack on release.
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thank you dickless I-love-torture cheney
"Many of the detainees designated for prosecution can only be prosecuted in civilian court," she said. "So unless Congress lifts the restrictions banning their transfer they are effectively 'indefinite detainees."'
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The broken promise of Obama

Over the last two weeks, the world has seen an extraordinary series of revelations about the scale, size and activities of the National Security Agency under Obama's administration. Though he came to power decrying the secret actions of Bush, Obama has embraced and extended many of the same activities.

Yet Obama has flippantly dismissed the controversy. Resorting to the worst tactics of the Bush years, his message is: "Trust us. We're the good guys." And then Congress is briefed – in secret, of course – about the "dozens" of terrorist plots such industrial-scale espionage has stopped.
No one in that hall in Boston in 2004 could have imagined that the young, eloquent and inspiring politician would have transformed so dramatically less than a decade later. Yet the age of Obama is not one of hope and change; it is the era of the national security president.



Then there is Guantánamo Bay, that bleeding sore on the face of American civil liberties. It is a tropical gulag of 166 men – more than half cleared for release but still kept behind bars – who are starving themselves out of desperation. Obama promised to close it down in 2008. He failed. He promised again last month. But nothing has happened. Meanwhile, the regime inside the camp is growing more savage.
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Hope and change indeed....
 
Robert said:
Hope and change indeed....
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The US House, lead by so called small government conservative Republicans, blocked the closure of Guantanamo Bay and approved spending over $1.6Million per inmate. LINK

So, yeah Obama failed to sign a bill that the Congress never approved. The bills to keep Guantanamo open have always been tied to Defense spending, which no president is going to veto. Smart part on the Republicans. Blaming Obama is more than an over simplification of the situation.
 
faethor said:
Blaming Obama is more than an over simplification of the situation.
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Obama carries the majority of the can. He made promises. He didn't keep them.
Five years later, scores of human beings are still being held in horrendous conditions and Mr. Obama appears to care very little about the situation.
Attempting to absolve Obama of that responsibility is also more than an over simplification; it's to reveal one's blinkered partisanship.

Pro-human rights anger which only manifests itself when there's a Republican in the White House is as bogus as Obama's Gitmo promise.
 
I agree Obama is not free from blame. However, we must assign Congress it's role as well.

Did you see this Obama assigns lawyers to work on Gitmo's closing ?

Not sure what the views are from Glasgow but as far as activity in the USA there's still a large and vocal pro-human rights agenda. Same sex marriage changes is one easy and recent example.
 
redrumloa said:
You are indeed trying to deflect blame from Obama. You know, the same Obama who has used Executive Order more than any other president?
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Apparently you skipped reading my statement. Let me quote that for you - 'I agree Obama is not free from blame'.

It would appear that FDR has the most Executive Orders ever. To make it even easier for you to validate the Republican talking heads hyperbola here's List of Executive Orders by President . There's a count of each for your quick reference on that page. And you can go look at each one if you want to know more detail. Red's expected response - damn that evil google! :p
 
Gee, FDR? The 3 term president (D) who presided over the Great Depression and WWII? I guess I forgot to put a disclaimer about the democrat President during the largest war and largest Depression in US history?
 
redrumloa said:
Gee, FDR? The 3 term president (D) who presided over the Great Depression and WWII? I guess I forgot to put a disclaimer about the democrat President during the largest war and largest Depression in US history?
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Yeah I know clicking then reading the link is difficult. .

Here I'll spoon feed ya the data.
Obama - 153
Bush II - 290
Clinton - 363
Bush - 165
Reagan - 380
Carter - 319
Ford - 168
Nixon - 345
...(Please feel free to fill in if you want. They're all more than Obama.)...
FDR - 3466

redrumloa said:
...Obama who has used Executive Order more than any other president...
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Your claim isn't even close to the truth. In reality, Obama has used Executive Orders less than any other president since WWII. And if you want to view the data as a yearly average, Obama is still at or near the bottom. (Sorry not doing more math for you. Ya gotta do some work yourself besides making fatuous claims.) We get you hate the guy. But, certainly you can avoid lying and have actual reasons to dislike him? I know I can.
 
executive orders aren't really the "quick fix" most people think they are...

gitmo-blame-5.jpg


The bill would keep the naval detention center open by prohibiting the Defense Department from spending any money to construct or modify facilities in the United States to house terror suspects from Guantanamo. The restriction would apply from the bill's enactment through 2014.
It also would bar the Pentagon from spending any money to transfer prisoners to the United States or a foreign country. The bill provides a waiver, but the Defense Department would have to make several certifications to Congress.
Although Obama has pressed to close Guantanamo, the Pentagon in its latest budget request is seeking $450 million for it, including millions for upgrading the temporary facility and $40 million for a fiber optic cable. Past budgets have reflected the Washington contradiction of Obama waging a political fight to shutter the facility while the military calculates the financial requirements to keep the installation operating.
In his speech, Obama said Guantanamo makes no sense in a time of deficit-driven budget cuts as the United States spends $150 million each year on 166 prisoners — almost $1 million per prisoner.
McKeon's bill says the Pentagon can spend money to upgrade Guantanamo, including $247.4 million for military construction.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=188356893
wowzers! theyre gonna make it bigger and better!yay!!!
 
Bogdan won't reach out to the detainees to discuss anything until they end their hunger strike. The men, however, won't end their hunger strike until Bogdan starts addressing their concerns.

But Bogdan won't budge. He appears to view the hunger strike as an insurrection, not a protest, and is using every trick in the book, however brutal and cruel, to put it down. A modern-day Captain Bligh, Bogdan has eliminated communal living, moving almost all detainees into isolation cells. His guards have confiscated family letters and pictures and legal materials, and even toothbrushes, toothpaste and towels. The guards prevent the men from sleeping by keeping bright lights shining all night and removing the men's eye-shades.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/20/guantanamo-hunger-strike-bogdan
 
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