White House: No End Soon for Guantanamo

JPMorgan's Losses a Canary in a Coal Mine?

FOCUS: Apocalypse Fairly Soon

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Agence France-Presse reports: "The White House admitted Sunday it would be unable to shut Guantanamo Bay in the near future, even as it acknowledged the US naval prison camp is a rallying cry for Islamic extremists."

With attempts by the Obama administration to close Guantanamo stalled, some 170 detainees remain at the detention center. (photo: Getty Images)

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+10 # bookzen 2010-12-26 21:59

With a lease that exists feloniously the U.S. occupies a Cuban harbor that is causing a hardship to every child, women and man on the island of Cuba. Our presence on Cuban soil is a travesty and, as usual, the Cuban people are denied the use of the best deep-water harbor in this hemisphere. Endless criminal activity by the U.S. continues.
The U.S. citizens should demand that Guantanamo be returned to Cuba and our military installation dismantled and all military personnel removed.
Our presence in Cuba is not only wrong, our country cannot afford the costs to keep active duty military forces on Cuban soil.

+3 # genierae 2010-12-27 07:15

bookzen: I agree completely. However, the American people no longer are listened to by most of those "representatives " we send to Washington. The corporate takeover of our federal government has made us irrelevant. They have even marginalized our votes, by rigging voting machines. This is not a democracy, and it was never "of the people, by the people, and for the people". The only bright spot is that the US government is so corrupt and unworkable that it cannot be sustained. It WILL fall, and when it does, we can begin to build a new one that really does represent us.

+5 # J.Lindsley 2010-12-27 02:46

To continue down a road we know leads to further terrorist nuturing is nothinbg short of insanity and the admitted demise of who we are as a nation.

And this is Hope?
This is Change we want?

A President?
A Senate?
A House of Representatives ?

This is Government?
This is what two mind blowing elections is about?

Is anyone HOME?

...does anyone care?

GOOD MORNING!

ENJOY

+8 # Ralph Averill 2010-12-27 02:54

I don't worry about Guantanamo. It should be shut down, of course, but we know about it. What worries me is all the "black" sites we don't know about. How many are there? Where are they? How many people have disappeared into them? Will the details of this American gulag ever come to light?

+6 # genierae 2010-12-27 05:29

Guantanamo is a brutal symbol of the Bush years that continues to stoke Muslim rage, and yet Republicans are determined to keep it going. This is only one example of their intransigence, they refuse to consider any new ideas that would move this country forward. The ignorant people who voted these neanderthals into office, and also those progressives who stayed home on election day, will have many opportunities for regret in the next two years.

+6 # acomfort 2010-12-27 11:34

[quote name="genierae"]Guantanamo is a brutal symbol of the Bush years that continues to stoke Muslim rage,

Just maybe it is the Muslim rage what we want and need.
We need good enemies and we need the resources in and near their homeland.
The military industrial complex needs to sell more equipment
thus the military needs more good battles.
More rage more resources more profit.

+1 # genierae 2010-12-29 06:17

Sufi poem concerning man's intransigence:

Man in his stupid acts,
iron mail from head to toe.
Why bother to raise your bow?
No arrow can pierce that.

+3 # Daniel Fletcher 2010-12-27 17:36

It is Guantanamo for which I despise Obama the worst. He could shut it down and close the base completely and turn it over to it's rightful owners, Cuba, by executive order. He is the commander in chief. He doesn't need the permission of congress or of the pentagon. On his signature alone, he could end this travesty.
But nooooooo! That would take leadership! That would take a spine! That would take a moral conscience, none of which he apparently possesses. And, he could shut down every clandestine military prison establishment, end renditions, get Mr. Bradley out of solitary, unilaterally forbid all torture under any pretext at any time for any reason what so ever, but he won't. He won't because he is a coward.
To those who insist on fawning over Mr. Obama, simply tell me why it is that he is incapable of exercising his authority, which he has exclusively, to end these nightmares? Why has he not overturned Bush policies and restored habeas corpus? Give me one good reason to refute my claim that he is a moral coward unworthy of the office he holds and while you're at it, tell me what difference it could possibly have made if McCain had won or if Palin wins in 2012?

+1 # acomfort 2010-12-27 20:18

On his signature alone, he could end this travesty.
But nooooooo! That would take leadership! That would take a spine! That would take a moral conscience, none of which he apparently possesses. Give me one good reason to refute my claim that he is a moral coward
Daniel, Well said and easy to agree with but . . . what if Obama is a good leader and has a spine and a moral conscience and he isn't a moral coward? What if he is doing exactly what he needs/has to do? For a moment pretend, if you will, that he does posses all of the good characteristics that you have taken from him.

Then imagine possible reasons that he has done so much that progressives hate.

Some possibilities 1) Remember JFK and Wellstone 2) It has been said banks can bring down any country with a few strokes of the pen, could there be threats?

I don't know what is going on but I don't believe that he has no leadership ability, is a coward with no spine and has no moral conscience. I think he has to do what he is doing as he is not the master of is own words and actions. The question then is . . . who is in control(TPTB)?

0 # Daniel Fletcher 2010-12-29 02:39

I greatly disagree acomfort, and here's why. A courageous person knows they can only die once and will do the right thing despite the threat. No one of moral character has a right to hold the Presidency who is unwilling to face that risk. As for banks bringing the country down in retaliation...just let them try. A courageous President would seize their assets, nationalize the banks and if necessary, raid their overseas holdings. If he is not the master of his own words and actions, he should get the hell out of Washington. That makes him an official wimp and no leader at all. I take from Obama what he has given away time and time again, and do so without mercy.

-1 # genierae 2010-12-29 06:32

Daniel, you forget that Obama has a family to protect, and they might well be under threat. Who knows what is going on behind the scenes? So many secrets, so much danger. Can you really, as an outsider, presume to judge someone that you don't really understand? Obama may be working in private to accomplish his goals, or he may be held hostage by the super-rich elite that really own the government. My point is that you have no right to judge him when you don't have all the information. I understand your frustration, I feel it too, but we need to withhold judgment until we have all the facts. If we want to live in a merciful world, we must be merciful ourselves, Daniel. We must be the change we wish to see in the world.

+1 # Daniel Fletcher 2010-12-29 13:46

genierae, I am probably as passionate a person as you are compassionate which makes you the better person I'm sure. That I don't understand Obama the person, is probably true. My perceptions are limited to what I can perceive so I have to go on only what I see of his actions. Perhaps I can't pass judgment on who he is, but I can pass judgment on his behaviors and on who he evidently is not. He has a family to protect and if that is what compels him to fail in his leadership, this conceivable threat to them, then perhaps he should resign for the good of his family. But if it his pride that would prevent this, in all humility I would say his pride should be equally compelling to resign and explain to the people why and where the threat comes from. As a spouse and a parent I too could be taken hostage to many threats but my own family would not permit this. I have more reason to believe his family would stand behind him even if it meant risking his life and theirs. When we elect a President I guess we elect his family too. If this is too great a burden for any given family, no one in that family should run for office. Servicemen and woman deal with this every day, as he should too.

+1 # genierae 2010-12-29 16:44

Daniel, I see that we have no common ground where Obama is concerned, we seem to be talking past each other. What I say doesn't seem to be what you hear, sort of like cognitive dissonance. When you say things like "which makes you the better person", that is not helpful to our dialogue. No one is better than anyone else, just different. You have exactly the same resources in your heart that I have, you just haven't felt the need to call them forth. Yet.

I'll try to remember that we can't make any headway when we discuss Obama, and mind my own business.

+1 # Daniel Fletcher 2010-12-29 22:27

When I use a figure of speech, such as: "I am probably as passionate a person as you are compassionate which makes you the better person I'm sure." I am being figurative and not literal. Of course I am NOT proposing that either of us are actually "better" than the other. I really, really appreciate, by the way, that you acknowledge that we have exactly the same resources in our hearts though you say I just haven't felt the need to call them forth. Yet. The "yet" demonstrates a hope that there are resources there to call upon. I believe you are correct.
We aren't making any headway when we discuss Obama, but is it supposed to be our business to agree? Haven't we both complained about preaching to the choir? Our business is to state our convictions, to have convictions that are sincere, and a willingess to be challenged and open always to the possibility of being wrong or needing to revise one's views. Our disagreements are making headway, if they are views honestly heald. I've never desired to argue for the sake of argument. The choir needs to hear your voice as well as mine, and I need your reminders to listen to my heart. Really. I'm trying, I'm mortal. Be patient friend.

+2 # Jayne Milner 2010-12-28 01:07

Basically the corporate rightwing is going ahead with plans to set up detention centers all over the world. Dissenters can then be wisped away and never heard from again. It is the same old, same old. The corporations did it in Germany under Hitler. Build prisons and lock up whoever you don't like or stands in your way. Musims today. Tomorrow minorities, homosexuals, liberals, socialists, - now that the ball is rolling it will be hard to stop. Corporations love the slave labor that concentration camps provide- no need to pay wages, health insurance, no work place regulations, no retirement - just work human beings to death and then throw their bodies into a furnace. All been done before and we are rapidly heading in that direction again. The Guantanamos morph into Dachaus which morph into Auschwitz's. Obama is not going to stop this process - he is now the chief enabler and cares only about himself and the power and wealth he will gain by being part of the new reich.

+1 # Daniel Fletcher 2010-12-29 02:42

Jayne, all right minded people should re-read Victor Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning". A good read after that is his book "Man's Search For Higher Meaning". Even in a concentration camp we may find opportunities for courage and dignity. The human spirit is greater than these.

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