hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry - now wait.
back in january - in fact barely two days after his inaugration as president of the united states of america - bho signed an executive order requiring that the guantanamo bay facility be closed within 12 months. at the time of his signing the order, the president said he was issuing the order to close the facility in order to "restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great even in the midst of war, even in dealing with terrorism."
and all the world rejoiced.
um, yeah, not so much.
you see, obama and the other leftists around the world did not take into consideration that no one wants the detainees from gitmo. not here in the united states and certainly not in europe.
initially, obamah's decision to close the gitmo facility received a speedy backing from obama's presidential election opponent, john mccain (clueless arizona) when he made a joint statement with senator lindsey graham (rino, sc) saying they supported obama's move to "reaffirm America's adherence to the Geneva Conventions, and begin a process that will, we hope, lead to the resolution of all cases of Guantanamo detainees."
then "larry king live," john-boy said he thought that perhaps the new president may have been a tad bit hasty in his decision to close gitmo. that maybe he should have taken a little more time to consider everything associated with closing the camp before laying out a timetable for adherence.
specifically, mclame said he thought bho needed to consider what would need to be done with enemy combatants held at G=guantanamo before ordering the facility to be closed. saying, "So, the easy part, in all due respect, is to say we're going to close Guantanamo," McCain said. "Then I think I would have said where they were going to be taken. Because you're going to run into a NIMBY [not in my backyard] problem here in the United States of America."
ya think? so johnny supported obama's closing of the gitmo facility before he warned him against the closing of the facility. all seems a little too much like the dems after the start of the iraq war, doesn't it?
so, now, fast forward five months and today - this evening, really - obama's white house has drafted an order that would "reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations."
according to dafna linzer and peter finn of the washington post, the order was drafted because of fears of a battle-royal with congress that would stall plans to close gitmo.
so let me get this straight. it was so important to close the guantanamo bay facility that it couldn't even wait two full days after the one's coronation, but it's not important enough that he's willing to fight congress on it? hmmm, i smell a rat (well actually more than one, but we'll reserve the others for another day).
his advisors appear to be worried that embracing another legacy of gwb's will put him on weaker footing with the courts and key supporters. uh-huh. of the two groups, whom do you think the advisors are more concerned about. yep, me too.
from the wapo article:
White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that there is no executive order and that the administration has not decided whether to issue one. But one administration official suggested that the White House is already trying to build support for an order.
"Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order," the official said. Such an order could be rescinded and would not block later efforts to write legislation, but civil liberties groups generally oppose long-term detention, arguing that detainees should be prosecuted or released.
why does anyone care what civil liberties groups think about long-term detention? if they feel so strongly about this, why don't they invite them to live in their homes?
in reality, the people who have been to gitmo all seem agree that life at guantanamo is pretty good. in fact, the patriot post digest from today had this to say about the whole thing:
The Guantanamo detainee merry-go-round continues to turn and churn. On the detainee transfer front, the European Union, a harsh critic of detainee treatment, allegedly made its most explicit promise to date on accepting some Gitmo detainees... well, kind of, maybe. In a rather foggy, diplo-speak statement, the EU pledged to cooperate with the U.S. on legal strategies that will "help the U.S. turn the page" on past detention policies. Naturally, the statement did not specify how many detainees would be sent to Europe or which countries would accept them, although apparently Italy has agreed to accept three detainees. So much for the "explicit" promise.
Speaking of transferred detainees, the four Chinese Muslim Uighurs released from Gitmo and sent to Bermuda last week were found by the swimming pool outside of their pink bungalow. Questioned by a Fox News reporter, the well-tanned detainees said that living in China is worse than life at Guantanamo, saying there is no guarantee of human rights in China. We're shocked -- shocked -- to find that this is the case.
yeah, me too.
in short, obama is back tracking once again. and just like with the whole iranian election thing (we can't meddle in their affairs. oh by the way stop doing what you're doing), obama's reversal doesn't make him look strong or presidential or even manly. it simply shows him as the spineless jelly fish that he is. and our enemies have taken notice.