Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
There appear to be legitimate foreign policy reasons why both the former and the current Presidents wanted to close Guantanamo Bay prison. The advantages were probably much the same as lead to the bulldozing of Abu Ghraib prison a couple of years ago.
But neither President, particularly Obama, anticipated the continued irrationality of the U.S. Congress on the issue. Abu Ghraib was no problem. None of those held there would have to come to the U.S. But what were they thinking when they were all agreeing that Guantanamo should be closed? Where were the detainees to go? Obviously, they have to be incarcerated somewhere.
As illogical as the argument is over Gitmo, it doesn't even rise to the top fifty problems facing the President. Maybe they can just quietly close it up and transfer all those they want to keep imprisoned, along with all the nuclear waste we have lying around, to Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Nah, that would be too logical...and Harry Reid would bury the idea in some Senate committee.
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VK - Love your response - it sums up why we cannot create a realistic solution to detaining these terrorists/enemy combatants/innocents/prisoners of war.
We first have to decide how to classify them and then proceed to a reasoned, if not logical solution. If they are, as President Obama named then in a recent speech, Prisoners of War, then GITMO fulfills all the qualifications of a POW camp, except for the seperatopm pf Officers and Enlisted. We will then have to identify a neutral power to whom we can release those that we choose to let go. We cannot repatriate them to their home countries, who under the terms of the Geneva Convention are at war with us.
I appreciate the bind the Obama administration is in. There are no neutral powers, we cannot release them back to attack us again, nor can we bring them to trial in the US justice system - the Geneva Conventions require a military court. First and foremost, no one wants them on American soil. GITMO is probably the best solution.