Has Obama acted too hastily in ordering the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility?

[keep_it_real]

Yes 40% 12133
No 60% 18148
Total Votes: 30281

http://www.cnn.com/

[Deja Q]

1. My vote is "Maybe"

[rvablue]

14. Curious: why do you think "within ONE YEAR" is to soon? n/t

[lib2DaBone]

2. No..... Not a minute too soon.

Now, if Obama can prove that the War On Terror is a financial scam to benefit Haliburton.....

Maybe we can all breathe again.

[Puzzler]

3. No, absolutely no!!!

He said he that this would be one of the first things he would do, and he has done it. If anything, the 1 year period is not fast enough.

Interestingly enough when the conservative pundit Ed Rollins was asked the same question yesterday on CNN, he also said that Obama had a clear mandate to close Gitmo.

[Igel]

10. He has not done it.

He has ordered that it shall be done.

There is a serious difference between the two in real terms. It's rather like a woman saying she's gotten pregnant and saying that she will conceive and have a child a year from now. One's a fact; the other's a plan. Let's not confuse the two.

There's even uncertainty about what he's ordered to be done: There are loopholes in what he said that could easily allow an analog to Gitmo to be set up, for some detainees to be detained. In this case, it's symbolic of something or other and nothing more.

* also said he wanted to close Gitmo; he contacted European countries about accepting detainees, dozens of them, that they simply don't want--they can't return them to their countries of origin and don't want them here. The difference with Obama is that Europe's seriously considering taking some that they refused to take when * was in charge.

[metapunditedgy]

4. If the US has any real evidence against these guys, wouldn't they be free

to prosecute those special cases in a more traditional manner? (Of course, any prosecution is probably tainted by the mistreatment they received already.)

[Igel]

11. No.

But that's been hashed out more times than I care to recall.

Terms need to be defined that have poor definitions currently. Witnesses are difficult to find, abide by different cultural norms, or were military and no longer serving. Physical evidence didn't allow for a nice documented chain of custody and wasn't kept in secure facilities; additional evidence was overlooked in many cases, or was plausibly overlooked, and that might be exculpatory. Even if the evidence is "good", it's hard to be sure that just because there were two boxes of papers and other stuff collected when Abu Chaim was arrested there wasn't a third--and will that Army specialist who did the collecting in 2002 still remember the details in 2009?

"Real evidence" comes in many forms. Often enough in criminal court in the US evidence is tossed; there was a recent Supreme Court case that got some civil libertarians up in arms. Police thought a warrant was out on a man so they searched his property--only to find, IIRC, drug-related stuff. They nailed him not on what the warrant was sworn out for, but for the drugs. However the warrant had been cancelled months before, so that the police had no legitimate ground for conducting the search. SCOTUS said that the police acted in good faith. Under older rules, the evidence collected would have been thrown out. It would have been "real" evidence of what is currently a crime, and inferences as to the man's conduct were ironclad, but it would have been disallowed.

I could go on. The question that Obama's going to have to face is when the evidence says a man's guilty and dangerous, yet he knows that the evidence won't play in a criminal court of law. Will he revert to military courts? Secret courts? Civilian courts with altered evidenciary procedures--and run the risk of having SCOTUS void the verdicts? Not a simple process, and one I'm glad I'm not responsible for.

[zorahopkins]

19. Presumption of Innocence

"The question that Obama's going to have to face is when the evidence says a man's guilty and dangerous, yet he knows that the evidence won't play in a criminal court of law. Will he revert to military courts? Secret courts? Civilian courts with altered evidenciary procedures--and run the risk of having SCOTUS void the verdicts? Not a simple process, and one I'm glad I'm not responsible for."

When the evidence says a man's guilty and dangerous?

What "evidence" would that be?

What happened to our AMERICAN notion that a person is INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty in a COURT OF LAW??

In a court of law, a person is entitled to confront the evidence and provide a defense.

The prosecution needs to PROVE its case that the accused is GUILY -- the prisoner does NOT have to prove that he is innocent.

So, if the evidence "won't play in a court of law", the prisoner is NOT guilty, despite what someone says the "evidence says".

I said in another post that Gitmo needs to be closed NOW!!!

Each day Gitmo remains open is an offense to our AMERICAN values.

We have detained people far too long there -- held them without regard to their HUMAN RIGHTS!

CLOSE GITMO --NOW!!

[metapunditedgy]

23. I think that's the crux of the matter.

If the "evidence" the military has won't play in a civilian-standard court, should we create an intermediate level of "courts" that accept this marginal "evidence."

Until I hear convincing arguments otherwise, it sounds like it undermines our legal system and a lot of what we stand for.

If these guys are so special that they couldn't be either killed on the battlefield or given an open trial, where the evidence that says they require this special treatment?

Maybe there's stuff I don't know about the cases, but I've read a bit, and as a concerned voter, I think it's the Bush admin's job to convince ME that they did the right thing. And they have failed to do so.

[zorahopkins]

24. You Are Correct

The Bush misadministration would never ever in a million years be able to convince any decent person that they did the right thing.

Because the Bush regime of thugs and cronies illegally imprisoned many people at Gitmo.

And now, those same people remain imprisoned.

Obama has a MORAL OBLIGATION to close Gitmo down -- NOW!!

[RC]

5. Obama didn't do it fast enough

He should have done it during the election campaign to prove his "Change"

What's with the maybe? Most of the prisoners there were just at the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the wrong skin color or facial features.
8 to 10 year old kids? Sure.

The question should be "What are we doing over there without an invite?" And "What makes these people anymore terrorists than our own military in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

[rvablue]

16. "he should have done it during the campaign"???? Are you being sarcastic? n/t

[RC]

20. Yes I was being sarcastic.

Some here have Obama on the level of a Deity who can do no wrong. Somewhere along the line Obama is going to screw-up and there will a be a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, along with rending of garments when he proves he is only human.

[napi21]

6. NO! All he did was issue instructions to the military that their new

mission was to close Gitmo. Now they have to recommend the best method to do that mission. He's already said it won't happen in a day or a week. I don't know enough about the legal side to understand everything involved in chosing how to try these people, but there ARE people in our military & the admin. legal arm who do. As far as where can we send a prisoner once he's convicted...I suggest any of our maximum security facilities would work just fine. They've housed serial killers for many years, and the worst of the worst at Gitmo isn't any worse than those guys were/are. The Pubs & the media are making way too big of a deal out of this issue.

[backscatter712]

7. Fuck no.

Hell, I think Obama's being generous in giving the .mil a full year to figure out what to do with the prisoners before they shut down the prison.

[Demobrat]

8. I seriously doubt if he acted in haste.

He had plenty of time to think about it and the repercussions, and I'm sure he knew what he was going to do about it a long time ago.

[Joe Chi Minh]

9. In a word, "No".

[zorahopkins]

12. Not. At. All.

Not at all!!

In fact, I think he should have done than what he did.

He should have CLOSED GITMO NOW!

There is NO reason to continue to illegally imprison ANYONE at Gitmo.

Each day Gitmo remains open -- open at all!! -- is an offense to our American values.

CLOSE GITMO -- NOW!!

[lunatica]

13. Why would he not close it?

There is no legal reason for it to exist. It's not only wrong, but illegal acts of torture occur there and the whole premise for it's existence is faulty, like the war in Iraq. There is no reason whatsoever for it to stay open. None.

[Hekate]

15. He promised to do so, and he's doing it. Not a moment too soon. nt

[Rosa Luxemburg]

17. no he hasn't.

[JackRiddler]

18. That 40 percent...

is a measure of CNN's reach as a propaganda tool for the Pentagon.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

21. No, no, a thousand times no.

[ColbertWatcher]

22. Kick, rec, voted.

Yes 41% 20338
No 59% 29280
Total Votes: 49618