Will Gitmo Closure Ever Happen?
As Excuses and Political Opposition Abound, Obama Promise Means Less and Less
by Jason Ditz, May 22, 2009
During yesterday’s national security speech, President Barack Obama tried to reassure that despite several high profile reversals on the question of detainees and publicly supporting the Senate’s decision to pull funding, he somehow still intended to see the detention center at Guantanamo Bay closed.
But four months after making that promise in the first place, there seems to be little political momentum for the closure, and less and less indication that the Obama Administration is willing to do anything concrete to see the facility closed. A good portion of Congressional Democrats are against it, and nearly all Congressional Republicans are against it.
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At the end of the day, keeping the facility open will likely be deemed politically safer, and with a myriad of excuses of why the detainees can’t be moved from extralegal custody on a military base in Cuba into extralegal custody on American soil, it seems unlikely that enough support will coalesce to see the facility shuttered.
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