Why Guantanamo Bay Won’t Close Next Year.
Yesterday, President Obama signed an order to close Guantanamo Bay by this time next year. As you might expect, that brought cheers from the MSM and exasperation from the right.
I’m not in either camp. In fact, I’m in my very own camp. I don’t think that Gitmo will close at all. I think that in about six months we’ll hear some vague noises from the Obama administration about security and legal issues and how the question is difficult and that we need to play it safe to keep us safe. The President will quietly sign another executive order to keep the camp open for a little while longer while they work through the legal complexities. We might read a brief story, buried in the politics section of most newspapers about another order keeping it open for even longer. In the end, nothing will have changed. Guantanamo Bay will keep processing prisoners, military tribunals will continue as they have, and nothing will have changed substantively at all.
Here’s why I think that.
It’s not tough to see, so long as you’re not looking through the wildly distorting lens of Bush Derangement Syndrome, that the last administration ran through a lot of options on detainees. They have been trying to send detainees back to their home countries for years without very much success. Either the home country, recognizing how dangerous the detainees are, refused to take them or some group here in the US blocked the transfer because the home country was a cesspool of cruelty. I’m sure that President Bush could have played hardball and sent them home no matter what but, believe it or not, his soft heart and good diplomatic sense made that impossible. He wasn’t about to send a detainee home to a place where he knew the man would be really tortured. And, he wasn’t going to antagonize allies like Britain, Canada, and Germany by putting their detainees on a plane and sending them home against the home country’s wishes.
The Bush administration considered housing the detainees on American soil, but soon found out that doing so would open up a Pandora’s Box of legal problems that would eventually bog down our criminal justice system and eventually lead to a security problem worse than having no detainees at all. That’s the worst answer possible and it doesn’t take a great legal mind to figure that out.
The other solution would be to simply stop taking detainees. When we find someone in the field, our soldiers would do what has been done in the past: hold a brief hearing and either let the detainee go or shoot him right there. Obviously, that wasn’t going to fly, which left us with Gutntanamo Bay.
It seems to me that the Obama administration is finding the clarity of sight that comes with the dissolution of ignorance. the more the learned about Gitmo, what was going on there, and what other options had been tried and discarded, the more they are seeing that Gitmo is the best solution to a bad problem. They are learning things they purposefully ignored during the campaign because if they had acted on what they could see, they would have lost the entire nutroot contingent. Obama needed the nutroots to keep him game against Hillary Clinton. Now that the election is won, he doesn’t need them nearly as much. He can also rely on their short attention spans and their intellectual inconsistency as he stealthily creeps to a position they would have pilloried him for taking six months ago.
My guess is that, slowly but surely, we’ll see Barack Obama slide into the position that the Bush administration held for years on Gitmo. It’s the only position he can take if he takes his job as Commander in Chief seriously. The other options have been explored deeply and have been found wanting. He’s seen reality and is proving smart enough to recognize it.
Other Posts of Interest:
- Obama to Close Gitmo…One of These Days
- SCOTUS Says that You and the Islamists are All the Same to the Constitution
- Barack Obama Yawns at Hate. Again.
Category: Fighting the Islamists, Oh, THAT liberal media., President Barack Obama, President George Bush, The Long War Here At Home
"Here’s why I think that."
You could have summed up the following words in one simple phrase: "because I'm nuts." Instead you write a long diatribe that included this beautiful piece of delusion:
"He wasn’t about to send a detainee home to a place where he knew the man would be really tortured."
Okay, Bush sent people to places like Syria and Egypt. You think those countries are just fine and dandy? And their techniques are just milk and cookies? I'd like to think you're smoking better pot than me, but I know damn well that I get the best in world. You are obviously just naturally crazy.
But the "would be really tortured" thing really drives me nuts. We employ the very best torture techniques in the world. We took the best that the Khmer Rouge, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Spanish Inquisition had to offer, and then added our own new techniques. And we turned that into the most sophisticated torture regime in history. Think Jesus got it bad? Well, we simulate crucifixion to such an extent that every bit of the pain is preserved. The only difference is that we don't have the decency to just let the poor guy die. We keep him alive so it can last for months. Jesus got off easy. You want to know what real torture is? Go to Tuol Sleng in Cambodia. They had to put barbed wire on the second floor balconies to prevent people from killing themselves to avoid the torture. And that torture was merely a subset of what we do. Every single technique they used there is used by us. Every damn one of them. And you don't think that's torture? Give me a week with you, and let me use US techniques on you. After two hours, you'll understand. Want to try the rest of the week? Didn't think so.
I could have, but I wanted to use my mind instead of falling back on progressive talking points.
"but I wanted to use my mind instead of falling back on progressive talking points"
If you think I'm just relying on talking points, think again. I'm been to Tuol Sleng and several minor torture facilities like the Hanoi Hilton. The Hanoi Hilton was a luxury resort compared to Tuol Sleng. What John McCain went through was child's play. I can't even look at an orange and white checkerboard pattern anymore, because that's what they had on the floor at Tuol Sleng. Just that image is enough to literally make me sick. As bad as Tuol Sleng was, our facilities are worse. We use the same techniques and then blare loud noises at the victims during the breaks. At least you could get some rest at Tuol Sleng. This kind of thing is truly disturbing, and you are an evil, sick man for supporting it. I'd say you are as bad as the terrorists, but I'm sure most terrorists would oppose these techniques. It is simply psychopathic sadism. Or Republican philosophy. But there's no difference between the two, is there?
Nonsense. If you really believe that anything we have now is even close to the Hanoi Hilton, then you've lost touch with reality and probably shouldn't be commenting on anyone's blog.
Bring those terrorist to Texas and put them on trial.. we have a great policy if you kill people we will kill you back. If we can get past the fear mongering of republicans "ooohhh the terrorist are coming whiners" we in Texas will take care of them. If the gangs don't kill them in prison they will become somebody's bitch and if that doesn't happen it's on to death row. Republicans need to stop hiding under their mothers skirts
Forrest – I'm guessing you haven't looked too deeply into the subject & what the objections are? Which, in a way I guess its good; at least you haven't been visiting the sites that Fostert visits that fill him with these deluded fantasies he is sputtering about.
But still, a quick look into it would help you understand it is not about fear of the terrorists. The fact is, when people are brought into criminal courts charged with things like murder or accessory to murder, planting bombs or smuggling weapons, typically there is a long & thorough investigation to support such claims. There are experts to testify & witnesses, etc. Honestly, you would not be able to get a criminal conviction for most of these people given the standard of evidence required by our courts for OUR US citizens. There is a long list of other reasons to but this one being key. These people are not US citizens; bringing them to the US and granting them the rights of US citizens; rights protected by the constitution & our military whom these individuals were trying to kill…you just cannot make the case to me that they deserve to be afforded such luxury. Nor can you point to a single war where this precedent has previously been set. This has never happened…because it is lunacy and there was a day when the majority of Americans had enough sense to see that.
And last, I would just like to point out…as a fellow Texan….we are not doing so good in the area of convictions for heinous crimes here in Texas. Yes, we do better than most IMO, but we still have a woman who drowned her 5 children and the other woman who smashed her 3 children's heads with rocks….unable to convict either. And there was that guy, Robert Durst, in Galveston who even confessed to killing his neighbor & cutting up his body and throwing it into the bay….he was acquitted. There are plenty of other examples so your chest-thumping here is misplaced. Convictions would NOT be guaranteed in Texas nor any other state.
[...] the President painted himself into a corner. He can’t keep Gitmo open right now (though reneging on his word later still remains a viable option, since the vociferous left has a very short and selective memory) and [...]