Obameter #177: Close Down Gitmo

Now here's a famous one: one of Obama's biggest campaign promises was to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, which he saw as a symbol of injustice and a recruiting tool for the enemies of America. Since his election, this has proven easier said than done.

Technically, the office of President does not have the executive power to close Guantanamo. It costs money to close it, and thus it takes a vote of the legislature to provide the money. And the legislature has a major concern: where are the 240 remaining Guantanamo detainees going to go? Without some concrete plan from President Obama, even Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid opposed the bill. Reid opined, "Democrats under no circumstances will move forward without a comprehensive, responsible plan from the president." Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have also stated their opposition to the bill.

This could be a political play. It seems many politicians want credit for closing down the controversial prison, but none want credit for releasing it's detainees or putting them somewhere else of dubious security or justice. The detainees have seemingly become 240 hot potatoes that no one wants to touch.

Personally, I'm opposed to closing down the detention center until more substantial proof of wrongdoing to it's detainees is revealed. Despite events moving my way in that respect, I'm irritated that people are playing politics with such a dramatically important issue. On the one hand, there are 240 lives hanging in the balance and which deserve some planning on their behalf. On the other, many or most of them are dangerous enemies of America and of law and order generally. It was wrong for Bush to postpone any decisions until the next administration, and it's similarly wrong for Obama to plan so poorly for their post-Gitmo future.

I would strongly respect any politician who took this issue as their own, who made it their business to do the hard thing, to propose a system to judge the dangerous from the peaceable, and to send these detainees through such a judicial process to determine whether to release them into accepting countries or to sentence them. The problem since the Bush Administration has been that there was no appropriate jurisdiction for these detainees. So make one! You're the government. That's your job.

This issue is not Obama's finest hour.