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Obama, In A Blow To Closing Guantanamo, Signs Law

I watched Olbermann and Maddow go ape-**** when it wasn't closed the first time it was discussed after Obama was elected.

Thats because Olbermann and Maddow pretend to play the game that they are actually for change in our foreign policy and rolling back the national security state when in reality they're full of ****. It was pretty obvious even before the primaries were over that Obama had no interest in changing any of those areas. At least the right admits it loves the security state along with its thugs by saying "If you didnt do anything wrong than you have nothing to worry"

i think a lot of the people who voted for him did

When I say here Im referring to this forum.

Bush warned Hillary and Barack not to make promises on the campaign trail they couldn't keep in office.

Bush bleeds red and Hillary and Barack bleed blue, what reason do Hillary and Barack have to listen to Bush and vice versa.
 
Thats because Olbermann and Maddow pretend to play the game that they are actually for change in our foreign policy and rolling back the national security state when in reality they're full of ****. It was pretty obvious even before the primaries were over that Obama had no interest in changing any of those areas. At least the right admits it loves the security state along with its thugs by saying "If you didnt do anything wrong than you have nothing to worry"



When I say here Im referring to this forum.



Bush bleeds red and Hillary and Barack bleed blue, what reason do Hillary and Barack have to listen to Bush and vice versa.

I asked you earlier:

Would you say he acted completely on hsi own here, or that opposition pushed him to do things differently than he wanted?

Afterward, the discussion seems to have moved to making promises he can't keep. Seems to me to be a political pit fall, maybe even an unavoidable one, unless you don't want a candiadte to say anything. However, isn't there a difference between being unable to keep a promise and never intenting to even try?
 
just some objective observations for those that supported obama and his rhetoric. right now you're sounding as dumb as the conservatives that expect the new congress to balance the budget. when we can admit that neither candidate was gonna do what we hoped they'd do, then we can start to look for candidates that won't lie, and will protect american values. until then you're inviting them to lie to us more and commit their war crimes, and steal our property.

this is about as annoying as going to a bar and dealing with the drunks while you're sober...
 
just some objective observations for those that supported obama and his rhetoric. right now you're sounding as dumb as the conservatives that expect the new congress to balance the budget. when we can admit that neither candidate was gonna do what we hoped they'd do, then we can start to look for candidates that won't lie, and will protect american values. until then you're inviting them to lie to us more and commit their war crimes, and steal our property.

this is about as annoying as going to a bar and dealing with the drunks while you're sober...

Why would anyone think any president can keep promises? They're not Kings. The best they can promise is that they will try, but they need congress. I have been trying to make this point.
 
the opposition, in this case, includes 161 house dems and 59 blues in the senate

the kneejerk clickers, 60 second submitters, can't even count

even when it's all laid out before em

pathetic
 
When he was running for president Barack Obama promised over and over and over again that he would close Gitmo, stop renditions, get rid of warrantless wiretaps and the Patriot Act, and stop torture. Instead of capturing prisoners Obama is killing them at night with pilotless drones.

He hasn't kept a single one of those promises. He's a liar. He made those promises without the intent of ever keeping them. We now see Obama signing legislation that makes it impossible for him to keep his promise. People who voted for him should be ashamed.

He's a politician. I don't know if people really thought that he'd close Gitmo; but to me it was clear from the start that he wouldn't. He just needed talking points to make it look like he was different from the Republican offerings that year; but in the end he'll maintain the status quo. That's what the Republocrats do.
 
Obama, in blow to closing Guantanamo, signs law - Yahoo! News



1. Closing Gitmo---another pipe dream pretty on the campaign stump but completely separated from practical realities.

2. It never made any sense, never had a chance.

3. Slammed shut by his own House in lame duck by a margin of 341 to 48.

4. Vamoosed by voice vote thru Reid's roundhouse.

5. As utterly unworkable as ending detention, ending rendition, prosecuting agents from Darth Cheney's CIA.

6. As quixotic a quest as reaching out to the leaders of Iran.

7. As unsustainable an enterprise as building a mosque to improve community relations at Ground Zero.

8. As ineffectual as suing the people of Arizona for doing the federal government's job, irresponsibly remiss for most of 30 years.

9. Remember Hasan, the Fort Hood hitman, who shouted "Allah Akbar" while assassinating 13 American servicemembers in their soldier's readiness center and wounding 30 others?

10. Why did the Pentagon report on the tragedy work so hard to whitewash the murderer's unambigous motives?

Fort Hood Report: No Mention of Islam, Hasan Not Named - TIME

11. Why did the White House try to move KSM to a civil courtroom in downtown Manhattan before the likes of Lance Ito?

12. The president's comprehensive posture pertaining to overseas contingency operations, ie, international terrorism, is replete with pie-in-the-sky caprice.

13. Effectual chief execs, in contrast, need be grounded in reality.

14. Five hundred and forty one congressmen and women from both parties grounded the chimerical commander in chief this week.

The Prof

Maybe he REALLY believed he could do it. maybe he was pandering to the left. Either way, he learned very early that there are certain realities to being president. He has opened a new version of Gitmo in the middle east, reversed track on giving captive terrorists constitutional rights, etc.

So...you can either look at it as "that scumbag, he lied!" or that he just got doused with reality, or that aside from the rhetoric he has given to please his base, he has actually done a pretty decent job combating terrorism. This is one of the few areas where I give him a positive grade (regardless of his motivation).
 
Maybe he REALLY believed he could do it. maybe he was pandering to the left. Either way, he learned very early that there are certain realities to being president. He has opened a new version of Gitmo in the middle east, reversed track on giving captive terrorists constitutional rights, etc.

So...you can either look at it as "that scumbag, he lied!" or that he just got doused with reality, or that aside from the rhetoric he has given to please his base, he has actually done a pretty decent job combating terrorism. This is one of the few areas where I give him a positive grade (regardless of his motivation).

He's learning - getting an education. All the Alinsky playbook rehetoric that got him elected was just that - a big "rope and dope". Now reality is, he cannot close it and he's violating the SCOTUS ruling and habius corpus just like Bush did according to the left pundits. Obama will be a poster boy for a classic and almost perfect election to become President, and a classic failure at leadership and executing a Presidency. Ultimately he talks too much, made too many promises and up until now had his bacon pulled out of the fire by Pelosi and Reid. Without those two, he'd have already been run out of the White House.
 
what should obama have done here? what choice did he have? please be specific in your answer.

I'll be specific
how about, 'what he said he was going to do?'
too much to ask of the President?

the independent vote is suffering because of his "lies" and false promise's.

the Far left (check mirror) would vote for him again even if he raped somebody,
the far right wouldnt vote for him even if he cured cancer.

the middle, is shifting away.
you'll see

come on "12"
 
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Pot warning the kettle not to get too hot, huh? :lamo

Whatever. But it was sound advice nonetheless. It's easy to make promises on the campaign trail, that are difficult to keep in office. It was a fair warning.
 
He's a politician. I don't know if people really thought that he'd close Gitmo; but to me it was clear from the start that he wouldn't. He just needed talking points to make it look like he was different from the Republican offerings that year; but in the end he'll maintain the status quo. That's what the Republocrats do.

advice, dont end your thought with a "yea but Johnny does it, so why cant I"

you may actually have something to add to a thread someday and just one of these endings kind of ruins all else.

just sayin,

on topic, aside from the millions who lined up actually believing he would close Gitmo, a large portion of the rest were just voting for Martin Luther King reborn.

So Gitmo has more impact on the next promise he makes than you would like to believe, I realize that.
but try it.
 
not exactly a ringing recommendation for democracy.

No. But it how it works. All forms have their problems. But when you need to get votes to win, well, you need votes to win. So, we're left with candidates from all stripes making promises they can't keep and trying very hard to take any hard positions, or admit to having actually stood for anything. Not that'd I would argue to get rid of a democracy, but we should know it comes with problems like any other system.
 
No. But it how it works. All forms have their problems. But when you need to get votes to win, well, you need votes to win. So, we're left with candidates from all stripes making promises they can't keep and trying very hard to take any hard positions, or admit to having actually stood for anything. Not that'd I would argue to get rid of a democracy, but we should know it comes with problems like any other system.
being "left" with candidates from all stripes making promises they cant keep" doesnt make any of it right.

the topic is obamas promise to close Gitmo, using this logic and or excuse we may as well never talk about any subject and the merit of said subject's relevance, no?

dont excuse his lieing to your face, and this isnt some Bush lied about WMD's opinion based on evidence at the time, lest you have proof he knew otherwise, at the time....,
this is a look in the camera and lie, lie. "I will close Gitmo by January 2010"

hard to run from that, now if this lie doesnt bother you, then so be it.
hence the conversation
 
being "left" with candidates from all stripes making promises they cant keep" doesnt make any of it right.

the topic is obamas promise to close Gitmo, using this logic and or excuse we may as well never talk about any subject and the merit of said subject's relevance, no?

dont excuse his lieing to your face, and this isnt some Bush lied about WMD's opinion based on evidence at the time, lest you have proof he knew otherwise, at the time....,
this is a look in the camera and lie, lie. "I will close Gitmo by January 2010"

hard to run from that, now if this lie doesnt bother you, then so be it.
hence the conversation

I never said any of it was right, but only what the system encourages, and espeically with a population that only marginally pays attention. We shoudl know as a country that the president isn't king and shouldn't be able to too many things without congress and the courts being part of it.

And frankly, making a campgian promise is in a no way equal to lying about a war. Things are not equivilent (I sometimes think people who use that word on these boards don't what it means). All lies may be lies, but all are not equal in their grievious nature. Not one candidate tells the complete truth while running for election. But not all tell bold faced lies that lead us into unnessary wars, costing thousands of lives.

And if Obama can't close it, not having a viable method, and congress has hindered him, then the fault is not his alone to bear. This is merely fact. And no one has yet answered my question: Is the reason it is not closed because Obama choose not to close it, or because congress didn't support him closing it?
 
I think if people really knew about how the Bush/Cheney administration co-opted the judiciary in order to keep terrorist from every leaving Gitmo no matter what the evidence proved or disproved, they'd be very surprised.

Closing Gitmo will continue to be difficult as long as this country is at war because of the purposeful legal rangling the previous administration did. Most of the men held in Gitmo will never receive a trial (let alone a fair one) because the rules have been set in such a way that none will likely ever see the evidence held against them because most of it has been labelled as "classified". As such, the Supreme Court upheld a ruling that detainees nor their defense attorney's are able to see classified evidence unless they have the proper security clearance. Moreover, even if the attorney's got the right clearance, the "classified" evidence that is suppose to convict these men can never be presented at trial for reasons of "national security". So, unless the SC overturns that ruling, any White House administration/DOJ who tries to hold trial against a Gitmo detainee has a steep uphill battle on his hands.

And if that wasn't bad enough, you have the issue of the rules for military tribunels being established by civilian trial counsels who've never dealt with "war crimes" issues instead of allowing the JAG court to write the procedures. The Bush/Cheney administration never intended to release the detainees or allow them a fair trial, not while the War on Terror was ongoing and certainly not while they were in office.

Again, if people really knew the truth where Gitmo is concerned, they'd think differently as to why Pres. Obama is having such a difficult time closing it down. Frankly, I think he's stuck on this issue until the war in Afghanistan ends. And by then it may be someone else's problem and they'll have the same problem closing it let alone bringing any of the detainees to trial.

If people only knew...
 
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I think if people really knew about how the Bush/Cheney administration co-opted the judiciary in order to keep terrorist from every leaving Gitmo no matter what the evidence proved or disproved, they'd be very surprised.

Closing Gitmo will continue to be difficult as long as this country is at war because of the purposeful legal rangling the previous administration did. Most of the men held in Gitmo will never receive a trial (let alone a fair one) because the rules have been set in such a way that none will likely ever see the evidence held against them because most of it has been labelled as "classified". As such, the Supreme Court upheld a ruling that detainees nor their defense attorney's are able to see classified evidence unless they have the proper security clearance. Moreover, even if the attorney's got the right clearance, the "classified" evidence that is suppose to convict these men can never be presented at trial for reasons of "national security". So, unless the SC overturns that ruling, any White House administration/DOJ who tries to hold trial against a Gitmo detainee has a steep uphill battle on his hands.

And if that wasn't bad enough, you have the issue of the rules for military tribunels being established by civilian trial counsels who've never dealt with "war crimes" issues instead of allowing the JAG court to write the procedures. The Bush/Cheney administration never intended to release the detainees or allow them a fair trial, not while the War on Terror was ongoing and certainly not while they were in office.

Again, if people really knew the truth where Gitmo is concerned, they'd think differently as to why Pres. Obama is having such a difficult time closing it down. Frankly, I think he's stuck on this issue until the war in Afghanistan ends. And by then it may be someone else's problem and they'll have the same problem closing it let alone bringing any of the detainees to trial.

If people only knew...

Yeah...those poor guys...

And this president was so distraught he created another version of GITMO in the middle east so that they never got close to the US and constitutional rights...

But...never mind about that...
 
Yeah...those poor guys...

And this president was so distraught he created another version of GITMO in the middle east so that they never got close to the US and constitutional rights...

But...never mind about that...

Created? To what do you refer?
 
He's learning - getting an education. All the Alinsky playbook rehetoric that got him elected was just that - a big "rope and dope". Now reality is, he cannot close it and he's violating the SCOTUS ruling and habius corpus just like Bush did according to the left pundits. Obama will be a poster boy for a classic and almost perfect election to become President, and a classic failure at leadership and executing a Presidency. Ultimately he talks too much, made too many promises and up until now had his bacon pulled out of the fire by Pelosi and Reid. Without those two, he'd have already been run out of the White House.

This probably serves BHO well.

With this he will be moving toward the center, a position he took during his first election campaign for the Presidency. It seems that he will continue to move to the right in preparation for his next Presidential run.

It makes sense for him to appear centrist during his final two years, in order to get re-elected, but if he ever gets a second term then he will be more leftist than ever.
 
Yeah...those poor guys...

And this president was so distraught he created another version of GITMO in the middle east so that they never got close to the US and constitutional rights...

But...never mind about that...

Created? To what do you refer?

First I'd heard about that one myself.

BTW, I wasn't defending Pres. Obama's actions (or inaction since this issue is about him not being able to close Gitmo) as much as I've been trying to point out that his hands are largely tied because of the legal actions of his predecessor.

There are just alot of things the public doesn't know about Gitmo - a illegitimate prison located outside the legal/territorial bounds of the U.S., a prison purposely choosen for one reason and one reason only - to keep the legal-beagles from every easily securing the release of detainees no matter how much or how little evidence there is against them.

No detainee will ever get released by trial w/o the government setting them free and even then what country will take them without risking come political fall-out of their own? We can't keep them here forever, and we won't send them back to Afghanistan while the war there continues and until they go to trial we can't execute them? So, what alternative is left?

Hold them in Gitmo indefinitely until they die...
 
First I'd heard about that one myself.

BTW, I wasn't defending Pres. Obama's actions (or inaction since this issue is about him not being able to close Gitmo) as much as I've been trying to point out that his hands are largely tied because of the legal actions of his predecessor.

There are just alot of things the public doesn't know about Gitmo - a illegitimate prison located outside the legal/territorial bounds of the U.S., a prison purposely choosen for one reason and one reason only - to keep the legal-beagles from every easily securing the release of detainees no matter how much or how little evidence there is against them.

No detainee will ever get released by trial w/o the government setting them free and even then what country will take them without risking come political fall-out of their own? We can't keep them here forever, and we won't send them back to Afghanistan while the war there continues and until they go to trial we can't execute them? So, what alternative is left?

Hold them in Gitmo indefinitely until they die...

Yeah, but that's different.
 
Yeah, but that's different.

How so?

Where Pres. Obama's attempts to close Gitmo are concerned, his hands are tied because by law he has to follow the legal precedent that was set before him. Even as President, there is a limit to what he can do - or in the case of Gitmo and all the legal wranglings, undo. I believe he has tried to find other ways to bring about fair trials, i.e. trying cases in civilian courts even after allowing the JAG corps to intervene, but even then there are limits to what the defense attorneys can do, what evidence can and can't be presented despite some evidenciary rule changes in civilian courts.

So, while it's true Pres. Obama hasn't been able to keep this campaign promise, folks have to understand the reasons why he hasn't been able to do so and why by most accounts it appears he's doing the same things GW. Bush did - hold them indefinitely until he can ship them off to other countries to imprison them abroad or hold them under house arrest indefinitely. He really can't win on this one, but he's still trying to find a way to do the right thing. I just don't think he'll be able to until the war is over.
 
How so?

Where Pres. Obama's attempts to close Gitmo are concerned, his hands are tied because by law he has to follow the legal precedent that was set before him. Even as President, there is a limit to what he can do - or in the case of Gitmo and all the legal wranglings, undo. I believe he has tried to find other ways to bring about fair trials, i.e. trying cases in civilian courts even after allowing the JAG corps to intervene, but even then there are limits to what the defense attorneys can do, what evidence can and can't be presented despite some evidenciary rule changes in civilian courts.

So, while it's true Pres. Obama hasn't been able to keep this campaign promise, folks have to understand the reasons why he hasn't been able to do so and why by most accounts it appears he's doing the same things GW. Bush did - hold them indefinitely until he can ship them off to other countries to imprison them abroad or hold them under house arrest indefinitely. He really can't win on this one, but he's still trying to find a way to do the right thing. I just don't think he'll be able to until the war is over.

He didn't know any of this while he was campaigning for president, making all the promises, and despite being a law professor?

You're certainly cutting the man a lot of slack!
 
the reason only 48 capitol hill democrats were willing to go on record in favor of obama's half baked blueprints for the closing of gitmo does not revolve around evidentiaries and admissibilities but is instead at heart, as always, a matter of POLITICS

341 to 48 in the house, STILL controlled by nancy (at the time)

VOICE VOTE upstairs (where dems still sat 59)

sorry

you probably don't recall may of 09 when the senate (with SIXTY blues) voted down funding for boarding up gitmo, NINETY TO SIX

Democrats lined up with Republicans in the 90-6 vote that came on the heels of a similar move a week ago in the House, underscoring widespread apprehension among Obama's congressional allies over voters' strong feelings about bringing detainees to the U.S. from the prison in Cuba.

Senate Votes To Block Funds For Guantanamo Closure

the senators could not assent, they said, because the white house had failed to address the most basic logistics, ie, the how's, when's, where's

one armed daniel inouye, chair of senate appropriations, who "favors closing guantanamo," explained: "the fact that the administration has not offered a workable plan at this point made that decision rather easy"

in my opinion, to appreciate really obama's difficulties here you must first look to the major players in NEW YORK STATE democratic politics

stay up
 
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