Quote:

---

Today is the 11th anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and like the past three anniversaries, it comes with President Barack Obama's campaign promises to close it unmet.

From Day 1, the story of Guantanamo, or Gitmo as it came to be called, has been one of injustice and illegality, the violation of human rights and a stain on America's global reputation. Locked within its walls are the stories of hundreds of men who have lost years -- and, for nine of those men, their lives.

In 2013, the story of Guantanamo is not just one of the failure to close the prison after so much time but also one of pragmatic failure of missed opportunities to take available, practical steps to reduce the prison's population.

Eighty-six of the men still languishing at Guantanamo were cleared for release in 2009 by an interagency task force created by the Obama administration. They remain there because Obama chooses, at every turn, to acquiesce to an intransigent Congress that is bent on keeping Guantanamo open for its own cynical political purposes.

This is particularly tragic because several countries have plans to help former Guantanamo prisoners reintegrate into society and have asked that their citizens be returned. For those prisoners who cannot go home because they face persecution or torture, there are third-party countries in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East that have volunteered to accept former Guantanamo prisoners for resettlement.

Many of the 86 men cleared for release are ideal candidates for these repatriation or resettlement options.

One of the biggest obstacles to closing Guantanamo is one the president created himself: a blanket refusal to transfer any prisoner to Yemen because of the "unsettled situation" there.

Apart from the fact that detention based on citizenship is discriminatory and illegal, concerns about returning people to unsettled countries does not explain why cleared Yemenis at Guantanamo cannot be temporarily resettled in third countries. More fundamentally, birthplace is not an indicator of criminal proclivity.

If they were treated rationally, as individuals, rather maligned as a group, the government would surely concede at least some men at Guantanamo could go home to Yemen and not become threats to the U.S. -- not least of all because most of these men, according to leaked U.S. documents, were never involved in hostilities of any kind, and more than half have long been deemed suitable for transfer by every relevant U.S. national security agency.

Finally, Obama has made no effort toward solving the central, inherent Guantanamo problem: indefinite detention. In addition to the dozens of men subject to de facto indefinite detention, 46 are officially slated to that fate. Two of the initial 48 have died. According to the president, the U.S. can neither charge and try the 46 men, nor can they be released.

Such a category violates the most fundamental principles of due process, summarily depriving people of their freedom by way of executive fiat. Obama has created this category without any plan for how to move men out of it. We are simply warehousing them. Do we plan to operate a prison at Guantanamo for the next several decades, holding these men as they age and die, outlasting the logistical problem even as we ignore -- and worsen -- the moral and constitutional one?

What the president lacks is not the political power to act, but the political will.

As Obama stands again to take the presidential oath to protect and defend the Constitution, looming behind him will be his institutionalized policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial -- a policy that has no place in a democratic society. Unless and until he uses the political power of his office to end this shameful chapter in American history, the story of Guantanamo will be one with no end in sight.More at http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/11/opinion/warren-guantanamo-bay/index.html
?hpt=hp_bn7]
Time for the Woos In Chief to grow some balls on this issue.

Nonetheless, let's not forget a large part of the reason it's still open:

Quote:

---

Three years after Obama promised to close the most infamous prison in the world today, and 10 years after the first detainee was brought there, Guantánamo remains open, with no foreseeable shelf life date. Why? The principal culprit is Congress. Adopting a short-sighted “not in my backyard” attitude, Congress has barred Obama from transferring any detainees to the United States, not even to stand trial in a criminal court, and has put onerous conditions on their being transferred to any other country. These measures have effectively frozen in place one of the most counterproductive aspects of our national security policy – and given Al Qaeda just what it wants.

But few members of Congress have the courage to stand up to fear-mongering about holding the men here, or are willing to risk the possibility that a detainee transferred abroad might take action against us in the future. They don’t seem troubled at all about keeping men locked up who the military has said could be released, or about keeping open an institution that jeopardizes our security. In the meantime, Congress has assured that the United States will continue to be better known around the world for Guantánamo Bay than for the Statue of Liberty. More at http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/01/09/guantanamo-10-years-la
ter/its-congress-fault-that-guantanamo-is-still-open

---

In other words, there's plenty of blame to go around, and both sides should get their shit together. This has gone on WAY too long!

Not that, what with the debt ceiling and all the other Republican-promised "cliffs", and guns, anyone will do anything about Gitmo.