RSS Feed MenuI wonder what the president was hoping to accomplish. Who is his audience and what was his message? He seemed desperately to want to stop the recriminations (and who wouldn’t after a month of watching his party being beaten about the ears?) but he has no substantive response to the issue on everyone’s mind: where are the detainees to go?
chephren // May 21, 2009 at 12:42 pm
“Where are the detainees to go?”Where indeed? Answer your own question, please. Was any thought given to this when the decision was taken to fill Guantanamo with “enemy combatants” (not POWs, if you please), outside the purview of the Geneva Conventions? If, indeed, Obama has opened a hornets’ nest with this issue, how would a Conservative deal with these prisoners – many of whom are now known to have committed no crime, and many, as we now know, tortured for no good reason. What would YOU do with them? Those who supported Gitmo all these years ought to be the first to step up to the plate and respond. The matter won’t go away. If the Conservative response is to leave them where they are, sooner or later the question will arise again, to the increasing embarrassment of the USA. Is Gitmo to be a long-term American gulag for undesirables who may well be innocent? The Jack Bauer scenario stopped being a reason to detain these prisoners a long time ago. Again: answer your own question. Where in God’s name are the detainees to go? What is your alternative?
balconesfault // May 21, 2009 at 1:36 pm
I figured Obama’s audience was the Democrats in the Senate. Their position seems based more on political expediency than on any specific principle. The ball will now be back in Harry Reid’s court, who’s going to have to decide how far he’s going to go in standing the line against a very popular President of his own party.
barker13 // May 21, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Re: Chephren; wrote 49 minutes ago –Scroll through the various threads touching on this topic and you’ll find my answers.(*SHRUG*)What would YOU do…???”…these prisoners – many of whom are now known to have committed no crime…”Wow! You have access to classified files…?!?! You’ve seen the records of each and every prisoner – interviewed both government officials and military defense counsels – if any?Got names…??? What’s “many?” 5? 10? 20? 50?”…many, as we now know, tortured for no good reason.”Same questions. (*SHRUG*) Where’s your evidence?”Again: answer your own question. Where in God’s name are the detainees to go? What is your alternative? “To reiterate from previous posts on various threads… I’d have to see the evidence. If as you say there are “innocents” caught up in this I’d release them and perhaps even pay compensation. As to those I could be convinced were actual terrorists… I’d hang ‘em.Now… YOUR turn.BILL
Chrisc23 // May 21, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Where are the detainees going to go? I would find a remote island far away in the Pacific Ocean and let them free. Technically they would be released. Of course the liberals would really scream about that. Although who said they would have to know?
danbmil99 // May 21, 2009 at 2:48 pm
He’s pleading with his base to accept his rightward drift on these issues, and pleading with his party to stop being hypocritical NIMBY’s and help him get this issue off the front pages so he can get back to his agenda.
barker13 // May 21, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Another point…So… is the war on terror over officially – in the field – as far as Obama’s concerned?The reason I ask… what about new terrorists we capture?I mean… Obama DOES plan on our forces catching more terrorists overseas… does he not?So… they’re captured overseas… say in in Pakistan as we’re conducting on the ground missions. Next? Do we hand them over to Pakistan’s pro-Taliban security services?Do we ship ‘em right back here to the States? If so… military tribunal? Civilian courts totally 100% out of the process?Yet… if convicted by military court they go to a federal prison? Incarcerated with “normal” criminals? In solitary? Are we ever going to execute any of these prisoners – ones we already have at Gitmo as well as future prisoners we take on the battlefield?How’bout terrorist captured here – in the U.S. Do they go to civilian courts or military tribunals. (I’m talking non-citizens… people we once would have called “spies.”) BILL
sinz54 // May 21, 2009 at 5:33 pm
chephren: I would leave the detainees at Gitmo right where they are for the present. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the facility, as long as the right procedures are followed to run it. And I would accelerate the trials of whichever detainees we intend to try.
sinz54 // May 21, 2009 at 5:37 pm
balconesfault: Democrats in Congress wouldn’t be taking such a strong stand about this, if they weren’t getting a ton of heat from their constituents. So I think Obama was trying to calm the worries of the American people, by reassuring them that a) Obama will NEVER put Americans at risk from terrorism if he can possibly avoid it; and b) Obama is on the case, trying to devise a system to process these detainees as swiftly as possible.That simple message, was couched in a whole mess of flowery rhetoric about America’s past. Just like Obama’s speech about Reverend Wright, it was designed to obfuscate. In this case, to obfuscate that Obama had told Congress to close Gitmo without first telling them what he planned to do with all the detainees there. And Congress refused. That little mistake won’t go away.
kroner // May 21, 2009 at 11:35 pm
He also spent a lot of time rebutting the talking points Cheney has been pushing on his media tour. He seemed to be making efforts to try to stop those claims from taking root as a legitimate argument for torture.
nealjking // May 22, 2009 at 12:52 am
It seems to me that we can divide the Gitmo inmates into three groups:1) Actual or likely terrorists: These should be tried, and if convicted, imprisoned. I don’t really understand the fear concerning having them within the U.S.: They’re criminals, not X-Men.2) Innocent bystanders who were turned in for bounty (known to have happened in Afghanistan) or were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. These should be released; they can even be released in the U.S. 3) Ones that we would be unsure about: These are the hard cases.The number of prisoners in case 3) are the hardest to resolve, but the controversy seems to be about the other two cases. Everybody seems to be afraid to have them in the neighborhood.For 1): They’re to be imprisoned. Why do they impose any greater threat in a maximum-security U.S. prison than in Gitmo? If there is a fear of “contamination” of their terrorist tendencies to other prisoners, then limit their contact. For 3): They’re innocent. Why are we freaked out about them? Example: the Uighurs who have a problem with the Chinese government, not with the U.S. Anyway, if they’re released in the U.S., we can keep an eye on them more easily, perhaps using monitoring technology.By contrast, there have been some problems with releasing inmates to other countries: Some sent to Yemen were broken out of jail and out fighting. It seems to me that these were in group 1), and should never have been released or out-sourced anyway.
sinz54 // May 22, 2009 at 6:20 am
nealjking: Terrorists who have a problem with a *government* will attack civilians of that government. That’s what Osama bin Laden did.There are a lot of Chinese nationals in America as tourists and businessmen, as well as nationalized Chinese-American citizens. These Uighurs could attack them to prove that the Chinese government can’t protect its own. Liberals are so worried about world public opinion and international diplomacy. Well, if we go lenient on the Uighurs just because “they are against the Chinese government, not ours,” the Chinese could say the same thing about al-Qaeda: Let’s go easy on al-Qaeda because they’re against America, not us Chinese.
sinz54 // May 22, 2009 at 9:19 am
Where are “krove” and all the lefty trolls who spewed forth their “Cheney is a war criminal” posts yesterday?I’ll tell you where they are: Sitting at their computers stunned by Cheney’s attack and Obama’s retreat, awaiting new marching orders from the Dem Party. For the moment, they’ve run out of talking points.
balconesfault // May 22, 2009 at 1:53 pm
You might call Obama’s speech a “retreat”. Others call it a statement of principle. There is a war of ideas going on – whether rule of law is our primary value, or whether security is. There will always be a tension between supremecy of the rule of law versus the security apparatus for preservation of liberties. Americans may decide where our future lies.
sinz54 // May 23, 2009 at 9:37 am
balconesfault: I agree. I only wish we had this debate sooner.Years ago, respected legal theorists like Alan Dershowitz and Richard Posner both realized that in wartime, an enemy consisting mostly of civilian combatants whose strategy is to terrorize American civilians may require some changes to law and even some interpretations of the Constitution. That such a war can’t be fought successfully either as Ann Coulter would like, or as the ACLU would like.I don’t respect ideological absolutists. When I tell you that Human Rights Watch plans to shut down Supermax after Gitmo is closed, forcing us to house the worst terrorists in ordinary jails, you’ll understand why such folks aren’t helpful.
fact based // May 23, 2009 at 12:57 pm
hmmm let’s see could it be possible that the detainees will go to the same place that the first wtc bombers went to, the fort dix bombers will go to, the miami guys convicted of planning to blow up the sears tower, the lodi ca terrorist conspirator, the fellow convicted of a terrorist plot on the nyc subways i.e. federal high security prisons on the us mainland…wait wait i’m confusing you with a logical response.
sinz54 // May 24, 2009 at 9:13 am
fact based: Are you aware of the fact that Human Rights Watch wants to close “that place” also?After they get Gitmo shut down, Human Rights Watch and the various lefties want to get SuperMax shut down too.They won’t stop till they get all the terrorists out on parole.
balconesfault // May 25, 2009 at 12:14 pm
“After they get Gitmo shut down, Human Rights Watch and the various lefties want to get SuperMax shut down too.”I don’t understand how they would argue that SuperMax prisons represent any form of extra-constitutional powers – and therefore, having observed Obama’s temprament, I don’t see why he could be expected to seriously consider their position.