Remember when Obama campaigned on closing down Guantanamo Bay and then didn't during his 8 years of being president? Yeah, I'm thinking about that a lot today.
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
I just had similar thoughts. Thank you for posting article link. All the “good liberals” who went off to brunch when Obama was elected is how we got here. #solidarity
Sadly ( and i voted for him both times) dude turned out to be simply best gatekeeper for system that died in 2008. Thats all he was,nobody else could gave done it. Thats why he is getting 500k for 1hour ‘speech’ to crowd he saved….
Sure, but that has nothing to do with Trump using it for people detained by ICE. Now, if you're randomly lamenting that he didn't close it, then yea, he should have closed it. If anything W should be blamed for opening it in the first place.
It would be easy and too simple to blame Pres. Obama for failing to close down Gitmo. However, he's not the only one to blame. Despite pleas to shut it down, no community wanted the new prison built within their state. With no available alternative, Pres. Obama had no choice but keep it open.
?? Multiple states built potential facilities and were ready to take the prisoners. Republicans in Congress immediately passed laws preventing it from being shut down and transferring them into the country. Communities wanted the loads of federal money (13 million per prisoner) to keep them there...
Why did the Republicans pass laws preventing transfers from Gitmo? Probably because communities didn't want them in their back yards. And the communities would not financially benefit from the prisons; only the corporate owners of the correctional prison-industrial complex would get paid.
Comments
Should he have tried harder to change the political storytelling around it?
... Well people were dragging his likeness around in a noose ... And Democrats didn't control Congress when the time came.