Obama And The Deadline For Closing Guantánamo: It’s Worse Than You Think

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Obama And The Deadline For Closing Guantánamo: It’s Worse Than You Think

27.7.09

Barack Obama signs the Executive Order relating to the closure of Guantanamo, January 2009When the Obama administration’s Detention Policy Task Force, established by Executive Order on the President’s second day in office, conceded last week that it would miss its six-month deadline to issue its recommendations about how to close Guantánamo, many observers focused on whether this meant that Obama would fail to meet his deadline of Jan 21, 2010 for the closure of the prison, and missed the bigger story, which was only revealed through close scrutiny of the Task Force’s five-page interim report (PDF).

Disturbingly, this document revealed that the Task Force envisages three options for dealing with the prisoners who will not be released from Guantánamo: trials in federal courts, trials by Military Commission (the “terror trials” introduced by former Vice President Dick Cheney in November 2001, and revived by Congress in 2006 after the Supreme Court ruled them illegal), and indefinite detention without charge or trial.

These proposals accord with plans outlined by the President in a major national security speech in May, but they are no more acceptable now than they were then, for one simple reason: they are designed not to secure justice, but to prevent any of the prisoners who fit into these three categories from being released; in other words, as Glenn Greenwald reported for Salon, “If they know they’ll convict you in a real court proceeding, they’ll give you one; if they think they might lose there, they’ll put you in a military commission; if they’re still not sure they will win, they’ll just indefinitely imprison you without any charges.”

The proposals put forward by the Task Force — and clearly endorsed by Obama — are bitterly disappointing, not only because they are so shamefully dismissive of the presumption of innocence, and because they reveal a desire to further turn the judicial system on its head by endorsing preventive detention, but also because they are cowardly in the extreme.


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http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/07/27/obama-and-the-deadline-for-closing-guantanamo-its-worse-than-you-think/

[Echo In Light]

1. The REAL "terrorists" are so desperate to justify "enemies." Pathetic.

[blindpig]

2. Indefensible.

Yet some will try, revealing their reactionary nature.

k&r

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Read this morning that Ireland has agreed to take 2 Gitmo detainees.

[blindpig]

4. kick n/t

[Orwellian_Ghost]

5. Shhh

This might dash some hopes though sometimes the faithful can be unshakeable no matter how much reality appears in the shadows.