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Comment by mpyne | Hacker News Reader

While I agree in essence with your characterization of the job done by Obama, I do want to point out (again) that it will take quite some advances in physics before we're able to locate the parallel universe where Obama may have been able to shut down the prison at Gitmo.

I think it's hard to imagine the sheer and total resistance to shutting down that prison if you haven't been in the country to see it yourself. I still don't understand the reasoning to this day. But there was never a chance, with the Congresses Obama was handed with, that the prison would be completely shut down.

I don't know whether it's a bunch of representatives attempting to look 'Tough on Terror' or what... but you have to pin Guantanamo on the people as a whole.

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But there was never a chance, with the Congresses Obama was handed with, that the prison would be completely shut down.

You've added a critical word there with "completely".

Congress blocked Obama from bringing Guantanamo inmates to the US for imprisonment or trial. But 86 of the 166 inmates are never going to be tried. They're already cleared for immediate release. Everyone (CIA, DoD) has agreed to this. Obama has the power to release them with the stroke of a pen, and the State Dept. apparently has a plan to do it and is just waiting for the go-ahead. So while Obama may not have the power to close Guantanamo completely, he does have the power to free more than half of the prisoners there, the ones who are not accused of anything. Yet there they stay, for no discernable (other than political) reasons.

Pinning the blame on Congress has worked for Obama politically, but if it's true that he's the one keeping more than half of the prisoners there, and with weaker justification since they are the ones unanimously agreed to be innocent, then it seems fair to say that Obama is more at fault than Congress is.

Source: http://ianmasters.com/sites/default/files/mp3/bbriefing_2013..., which is an interview (starting at 1:36) with one of the public defenders involved.

Release them to where? Their home countries don't even want to take them back now I believe.

What?

The interview I cited didn't say where, explicitly; what he said was that arrangements had been made by the State Department and it was the White House holding things back.

I'd like to know the answer to your question too, but I'm hesitant to accept the "there's nowhere to send them" meme, which one hears often, without something to distinguish it as fact rather than propaganda. For example, another often-repeated meme, "these are the worst of the worst", is apparently entirely untrue in these 86 cases. (Even the half dozen prisoners who have actually been tried were apparently mostly just cooks and drivers and such.)

In that case, given that the United States government forcibly removed them from where they were beforehand, it would make sense that the United States hosts them if they can't go home. After all, many of them have been there long enough to potentially qualify for US citizenship.

The problem is that not only have a lot of them been there long enough to qualify for US citizenship, but they've experienced enough torture and fundamental violation of their human rights that they also qualify as avid haters of America and its citizens.

So the US has created a monster, and is not willing to let that monster live in its neighborhood, and nobody else wants it either, so .. there they stay.

Don't worry though, a lot of the Gitmo detainees know the situation is dire, and thus: the hunger strike. For some of them, death will be the only escape.

> The problem is that not only have a lot of them been there long enough to qualify for US citizenship, but they've experienced enough torture and fundamental violation of their human rights that they also qualify as avid haters of America and its citizens.

I think that's quite an assumption to make. There's no doubt that the prisoners will have sustained serious injuries to their mental and physical health, but that's the job of the US government to address. The right thing to do is to move them to a mainland facility, give them treatment for the problems they have and release them as and when they're ready to enter society. If they then choose to sue the government that's their choice and the US government should suck it up.

This needs to be so painful for the US government to deal with that it never happens again.

And yet, to add insult to multiple injuries, they are not even allowed to die. They are force-fed. If nothing else can be done, they should be allowed to starve themselves to death if that's their wish. I wonder if Boehner, Limbaugh, etc. would be ok with that.

A sincere apology, along with providing counselling, free housing and a stable pension to take care of their living expenses - would go a long way.

Also, hatred grows exponentially, with each day they spend in prison and is multiplied by the international audience that's watching the story unfold. If you fear their hatred, the most rational thing to do is to release them and package their misfortune in tale with a happy ending.

Not doing that will lead to even more hatred and even bigger monsters.

Portugal has offered to take detainees (2), http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/08/07/portugal.syri... and I believe other countries have also offered. I am not sure whether this already has taken place or whether it relates to the individuals still in captivity.

Just release them. Since the US was the country which arrested them in the first place, interrupted their lives and kept them for 11 years without a trial, at least the US could grant them residence permit. Sure, there might be a terrorist or 10 among the 500 detainees left but no real court would ever be able to convict them after a decade of torture and other human rights abuses. Also, since the US already has state-of-the-art surveillance in place they would be able to keep an eye on these guys in the future ;-)

I disagree. Obama had a lot of oppertunity here, but more importantly he never intended to actually stop indefinite detention. Rather than go through all the reasons here I'll just point out one of many articles that debunks this reasoning-

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/23/the_obama_gitmo_myth/

He could've shut it down a dozen different ways, had he wanted to. He's expended zero political capital on this issue.

Health care was clearly more important. So at least Americans got that.

Yep. That means...

Instead of working 39 hours per week for one job, I'll work 29 hours a week, and have to get multiple jobs.

Yay.

I rather see him publicly try and fail, than not try. To stand up there and point out how he did as much as is constitutionally possible, and point out the representatives who prevented it from happening. ie the fault of gitmo not closing should be clear and not rest with him.

He shouldn't have promised that he would, then.

So a person can just make empty promises on a campaign, get elected and do a bunch of crap people disagree with via executive order, and then blame all the stuff he didn't do on Congress?

edit: And yes, informed voters should know what the President can and can not reasonably promise, but I would hope that presidential candidates would actually have the integrity to not intentionally mislead people, and that a person who promises to close Gitmo would at least be more outspoken about his desire to do so.

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