Obama dealt major setback in closing Guantanamo

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By DONNA CASSATA

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's 5-year-old campaign to close the federal prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, suffered a major setback as lawmakers finalizing the annual defense policy bill rejected steps toward shuttering the facility.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Monday that the final bill omits a provision giving the president the authority to transfer terror suspects to the United States if Congress signs off on a comprehensive plan to close the prison.

Levin had pushed for the authority and hailed it in May as creating "a path to close Guantanamo." With lawmakers rushing to complete the defense bill in this month's lame-duck session, Levin said proponents were unable to prevail.

"Our language ... (on Guantanamo) ... will not be in," Levin said.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141202/us-congress-guantanamo-22bc4b4002.html

[heaven05]

1. precursor to the next two years

and if democrats stay lazy, beyond that.

[hughee99]

2. The president could always pardon the prisoners and grant some sort of residency status

to those who can't find countries to take them in.

[branford]

6. Sure he could, but

I would then like to introduce you to President Ted Cruz in 2016.

Pardoning Guantanamo detainees and then bringing them to the USA as residents would be political suicide.

The public doesn't even support domestic trials for the detainees, no less making them someones neighbor.

[DeSwiss]

10. Bullshit.

- Utter BULLSHIT.

[Lurks Often]

12. The ability to pardon the prisoners is a gray area

It depends how the law at http://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardon_instructions.htm is interpreted

Since the prisoners are not US citizens and have not been convicted of a federal crime or found guilty by way of a court martial, I'm not sure they can be pardoned.

As for granting residency, the President is forbidden from using any money to move them into the United States and I'm inclined to think it would be a political nightmare to grant the prisoners permission to live in the US

[hughee99]

14. In 1866 ex parte Garland, I believe the

Court ruled that a president could pardon someone as long as the act had already been committed. No legal processing need have been initiated. I think I read that when people were pissed at the thought on Bush preemptively pardoning people before he left office.

[Lurks Often]

17. Still I wonder if that applies to the Gitmo prisoners

and even if the President can pardon them, Congress won't allow them in the US, so they will be send home, where many of them will probably be executed or tossed in prison for life by the countries they are citizens of. IIRC that is one of the sticking points over just sending them back to their countries of origin.

[Reter]

13. You want residency status Al Quida members?

I'm quite liberal when it comes to taking people in, but no way to those guys. In all honesty Obama might even be impeached for that, with public support.

[davidpdx]

3. A bad deal all the way around

The longer these people are held the harder it will be to release them. Even though Congress is stopping it with the powers of the purse, Obama will get blamed for Gitmo not being closed down.

[SoapBox]

4. Talk about a mystery...

What the hell is this "dark hole" costing us? How many people are there and how long have these uncharged "terrorists" been kept? Anyone new or the same old ones from the Bush Terror years?

And I've always been fascinated that none of the "guards" ever talk or publish what is going on in there.

Charge them, try them or let them go...and then shut that damned thing down.

[elleng]

7. 150 remain there, I understand.

Some have recently been released to various countries.

[unhappycamper]

8. Last I saw, Gitmo costs us around $500 million annually. n/t

[Lurks Often]

15. Is that for the prison camp or Gitmo overall?

We've had a base there since 1898, so I am not sure that $500 million is just for the prisoners.

I know we've used it in the past to house Cuban and Haitian boat refugees

[unhappycamper]

20. I believe it was for the entire facility including the soccer fields, gyms, etc. n/t

[murielm99]

5. It seem like I read about some

major setback to Obama every day. The press wants to make him look bad, when the lawmakers are the ones who can't get anything done. The media could use a thesaurus. Isn't there some phrase other than "major setback?"

[DeSwiss]

9. Then fucking pardon them!

- LET. THEM. GO.

Let these assholes run an empty prison. They don't control your presidential power.

[harun]

11. GW Bush can start a war in Iraq costing over 1 Trillion

Dollars, yet Obama can't find a way to close Guantanomo?

[Sunlei]

16. As of November 2014, 142 detainees remain at Guantanamo, cost is about 500 million!

As of June 2013, 46 detainees (in addition to 2 who were deceased) were designated to be detained indefinitely, because the government said the prisoners were too dangerous to transfer and there was insufficient admissible evidence to try them.[35]

FOIA suit reveals Guantánamo’s ‘indefinite detainees’

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article1952557.html

[Fred Sanders]

18. And there goes another fragment of America's moral credibility, no time to consider this in the rush

to pass hundreds of billions for "defence"....utterly immoral.

And Obama was not delivered a setback, Justice was the one being slapped.

Justice should veto the defence bill.

[riversedge]

19. Congress took too much time off and now do not have time to govern...

before they take a LONG Christmas break!! F**k them!