Obama Preparing Order To Close Guantanamo

Obama Preparing Order To Close Guantanamo

www.cbsnews.com

(CBS/AP) President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to issue an executive order his first week in office — and perhaps his first day — to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to two presidential transition team advisers.

But the order, which one adviser said could be issued as early as Jan. 20, would start the process of deciding what to do with the estimated 250 al Qaeda and Taliban suspects and potential witnesses who are being held there.

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Excellent! I had herd rumors going both ways on this one and so to me this is really very encouraging news.

I know many out there believe that Gitmo is essential in protecting the USA, but I do not. In fact it is MHO that this 'institution' does us more damage and creates more of a potential for being attacked it he future.

Hopefully this is just the first of many steps Obama will immediately take while in office, undoing so many of the blunders and damaging policy moves of the Bush Administration.

www.cbsnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Didn't Bush say something in his press conference today about other countries not being willing to take these prisoners from Guantanamo?
Yeah, I think so. I don't know where we're going to put them. I know people were talking about letting some of the people go, putting some on trial, and then... I don't know what with the others.

reply to post by ravenshadow13


Well as the article states:

It's unlikely the detention facility at the Navy base in Cuba will be closed anytime soon. In an interview last weekend, Mr. Obama said it would be "a challenge" to close it even within the first 100 days of his administration. ...Most have not been charged with a crime.

So there is obviously going to be 'lag time' in which the actually logistics of what and how to do this will be sorted out.

So I think that there is a fairly high chance that many of these 'prisoners' will be given their freedom.

But I am no expert so we will have to wait and see how it plays out. Regardless it is an important move for the country.

Here comes Obama's Civilian Defense force.

not a 1 liner.

Yea, I agree it is time to close it. that way we can go back to the good ol days when we let the allies torture them in their homeland and nobody ever heard a word about it.

The vast majority of people in guantanamo are completely innocent.. the
moment they are given their fair trials, they will be finally set free. After
that it can't be hard finding a place for the one or two real terrorists that
are left there.. if there is even a single one at all.

Guantanamo was never about interrogating terrorists, lol.. it was about
creating fear, I always thought that was really obvious from the start..

[edit on (12/1/09) by Wehali]

I wonder, do people believe that closing Gitmo will make the country, and others, less safe?

Why do you feel this way?

There are now two threads on this subject, but yours is the earliest so I'll post here.

From what I've seen on the news this evening, Obama is being very careful and deliberate about how he will accomplish this goal. It has been implied that there are a lot more difficulties in doing so than Obama anticipated while on the campaign trail.

I think now that he's getting national security briefings and being fully informed about the process, he realizes it may be a longer and more difficult accomplishment than he realized.

Still, I believe few things would contribute more to restoring America's standing in the world than to end torture and find a better, faster and more humane way to imprison and try terror suspects.

[edit on 12-1-2009 by Sestias]

Perhaps he has realized that Terrorist make lousy house guests and can't be trusted with the family silver. He may also be getting cold feet not wanting to take the blame if one of them kills somebody after being released, as is likely to happen.

He has a tough decision to make.