Four Obama Policies That Help Keep Guantanamo Open

[dixiegrrrrl]

This is from PBS Frontline page.
the article explains what Congress has done to keep Gitmo open, what Pres. Obama has NOT done to counter Congress,
and why prisoners cleared for release were not released.

But despite his stated desire to close Guantanamo, Obama has authorized at least four policies that have helped to preserve a detention system that he said Tuesday was “not sustainable” — and made it more difficult for prisoners to be released.
Here’s the list:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/four-obama-policies-that-help-keep-guantanamo-open/

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. Even Dianne Feinstein gets it:

"3. Force-feeding detainees.

"Currently, 100 of the 166 people currently being held in Guantanamo are on hunger strike, and 21 are being force-fed through tubes put down their noses. “I don’t want these individuals to die,” Obama said on Tuesday.

"But the practice is a violation of medical ethics, according to the American Medical Association, which sent a letter of protest to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. The definitive report on torture during the Bush administration, released in April by a nonpartisan task force, said that the practice is “a form of abuse and must end.”

"The prisoners began the strike out of despair that they may never be released. Sen. Dianne Feinstein told the Obama administration in a recent letter that Red Cross staff members visiting the prison had said that the detainees’ level of desperation is “unprecedented.”

[GitRDun]

2. I am wondering where all the Obama apologists are?

They have been out in force on this issue. The President has done a lot of great things but Gitmo is an epic failure.

We're seeing now the same hopelessness in these prisoners that we decry when comes from a poor neighbor, a Bangledeshi garment worker, etc. locked into poverty and suffering by some global corporation or other power that be.

Gitmo was created out of a knee jerk primal fear of terrorists. The notion that you cannot release these folks is ludicrous! We release felons from prison everyday and no one squawks about it. Why the primal fear of recidivism from many who never did anything?

Get the criminals into the court system. The ones cleared or not enough evidence, let them go. We'll live...

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. I am not sure enough people understand the whys and why nots of Gitmo being closed.

I say that because of the posts here on DU, where discussion of Gotmo being shut down does not, overall, reflect what this PBS link points out...
that while Congress has been obdurant about the closing, the President has not pursued his available options to close it.

Meanwhile, the stench of hypocrisy speads across the globe.

[byeya]

4. I agree with you on that. Pres 0bama has refused to use his power as CIC to make

any meaning positive changes in the conditions there; the deployment of military personnel; the questionable use of medical personnel, etc.
It's a world-wide embarrassment at the minimum and a violation of international law at the maximum.