Hey look, Congress stabbed Obama in the back on closing Gitmo again. Quelle surprise!
President Obama’s 5-year-old campaign to close the federal prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, suffered a major setback as lawmakers finalizing the annual defense policy bill rejected steps toward shuttering the facility.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Monday that the final bill omits a provision giving the president the authority to transfer terror suspects to the United States if Congress signs off on a comprehensive plan to close the prison.
Levin had pushed for the authority and hailed it in May as creating “a path to close Guantanamo.” With lawmakers rushing to complete the defense bill in this month’s lame-duck session, Levin said proponents were unable to prevail.
“Our language … (on Guantanamo) … will not be in,” Levin said.
The House and Senate are expected to vote and overwhelmingly approve the sweeping policy bill in the coming days, sending it to Obama.
Here “overwhelmingly” means “more than a two-thirds veto-proof margin”, which of course requires a significant number of congressional Democrats to screw Obama over on closing Gitmo and not just the GOP. So after this becomes law, and it will, even if Gitmo does close, the President can’t do anything with the detainees who are there as far as moving them to the US. They’d have to be housed in another foreign facility.
So no, Gitmo is not going to close, and every time President Obama tries to do something about it, Congress throws a veto-proof bill on his desk saying “The hell you ever will.”
If anybody has a viable plan as to how President Obama can actually close Gitmo in this environment, where Congress keeps moving the goalposts and we keep re-electing 95% of the Congress I’m all ears.
Belafon
I believe the plan involves whining about how the President isn’t doing enough to close Gitmo. Oh, did you mean a plan for CLOSING Gitmo? Nope, got nothing.
Edit: I take that back. I have an idea. Obama should declare the discovery of oil under it.
Joseph Nobles
There is no viable plan. You said it all.
And the same yahoos that scream about Dictator Obama (and mean it) will just laugh at this. It doesn’t even enter their minds that these two things can’t be both true. Or at any rate, they just don’t care. Ha ha!
lol
Maybe only, IF ONLY, the President could LEAD.
LEAD US PRESIDENT GREEN LANTERN!
mikefromArlington
Maybe he shoulda have a onesy pajama party with Boner and Turtleman @ the Whitehouse and lead for once.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
Pantswetting chickenshits. Seriously. When Congress no longer has any incentive to fucking do anything, they aren’t going to. Until the incentives in the system change, we’ll keep getting representation calculated by some cowardly PR-and-fundraising-risk-assessment-matrix.
Culture of Truth
Romney: “I would double the size of Gitmo!!”
This is the mentality he’s up against. Politicians aren’t asking for t. The media aren’t. The people certainly aren’t.
Cervantes
Obama should simply insist on keeping the facility open.
Spinwheel
You know, most people would be far more worried about our illegal ground invasion of Syria right now (Oops, my bad I mean the 2,900 additional “advisers going to assist Iraqi forces” but mission creep is a funny thing!) but whatever you need to sleep at night as an unapologetic Obot.
Omnes Omnibus
The bill is the entire Defense budget. Do you think that Obama will veto it over the lack of Gitmo closing authority? The Senate bill contained the Gitmo closing provisions, the House bill did not. The bill the came out of the conference also did not; it sounds like the House wasn’t going to go along with it no matter matter what. In that case, for each member of Congress who supports the closure, the question becomes whether the closure provisions are worth voting against the entire defense budget. I am not sure that those who, in the end, vote for the budget are screwing Obama over. I doubt he will be screwing himself over when he signs it.
Jack the Second
Threaten to pardon anyone still at Gitmo come January 1st.
Scott S.
Obama could always designate Congress as a security threat. God knows those useless pricks would benefit from a few decades of off-the-grid waterboarding and electroshock therapy.
mai naem mobile
@Belafon: Actually, i remember hearing a few years ago that they were looking for oil in Cuban waters.
mb
The president is still, I think, Commander-in-chief of the armed forces. This includes the US troops that guard prisoners at Gitmo. Without Congressional approval or action, he could order them to open the cages and stand down. Have the FBI standing by to arrest the prisoners who, naturally, will be moving about the compound, for trespass and transport them to Federal holding facilities in the US for trial. I have no doubt that the FBI can transport suspects without going to Congress for an appropriation.
That’s what a president who really wanted to close Gitmo would do. He doesn’t need Congressional action, he wants it.
beltane
@Cervantes: Now that sounds like a plan.
Comrade Dread
Transfer them all to a fleet of slow moving dirigibles that move from hovering above the house of one congressman to the next closest congressman.
Technically they’re just being moved through the United States airspace and not actually housed in the United States.
Note, IINAL. But I’d certainly ask my White House council about it if I were president, because I too can be petty and sometimes an asshole.
Tone In DC
Zandar, thanks for this.
I’d forgotten just how useless the so-called legislature actually is.
I somehow failed to recall BENGHAZI!!!1!!
And the fiscal cliff.
And the shutdowns. And more shutdowns.
And the impeachment, led by the “House managers” from 1998.
And Speaker Gingrich and his many temper tantrums.
And Ken Starr and his $40 million investigation that dragged on for seven years, culminating in widespread indignation, sound and fury over a hummer.
And welfare reform (these poors have CELL PHONES?).
And Gramm-Rudman (from waaay back in 1986), cuz passing an actual budget is hard.
My memory must be going in my old age.
Amir Khalid
If I’m not mistaken, there’s a Malaysian among the detainees still at Gitmo. I doubt the government here would take him back except to put him under no-trial detention as a security risk. In fact, I reckon most of these detainees would be seen such by their home countries — even the unlucky ones who just got kidnapped and turned in to US forces for the reward. Since there’s no real way to prove most of these guys did anything, justice demands they be set free. But where? Sending them home would likely mean a life for them of either more detention or constant surveillance.
@Belafon:
That might actually work.
Frankensteinbeck
This is still bizarre to me. Congress agrees about nothing. NOTHING. I’ve seen military budgets and support of Israel contested during the last five years.
But supporting George Bush’s Excellent Adventure? Keeping Guantanamo open and declaring torture legal? Near unanimity and enough determination to override vetoes. Democrats and Republicans both. A truly bipartisan issue.
I can’t make sense of it. Fear of political consequences doesn’t explain it. There’s nowhere near that kind of unanimity on other politically dangerous issues.
EDIT – @Amir Khalid:
I recall that being part of the problem. Obama shipped off everyone that foreign governments would allow.
Citizen_X
Send a couple of our home-grown white Christian terrorists there.
@mb: Ha ha! That’s a good one, too. Open the gates!
Wait, you were serious?
debbie
@Belafon:
Frack it to hell and back!
MomSense
Moar Bully Pulpit!!!
RP
@mb: hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Amir Khalid
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’ve always held that if no one else will take them in, and there’s no way to put them on trial, the US should offer the remaining detainees asylum on its soil. Of course, I know better than to think this solution is politically viable.
Frankensteinbeck
@Amir Khalid:
I believe congress has just demonstrated how they would react to that, yes.
OzarkHillbilly
I suggest fracking for gas at the intersections of East Capitol St NE & First St SE, Washington, D.C.,
AxelFoley
LOL, and emos will continue to blame President Obama for Gitmo, all the while giving Congress, especially Dems, a pass.
Much like blackademics blaming him for Ferguson, instead of the corrupt prosecutor and spineless governor.
samiam
Yea, I’m sure ball juice bloggers and the commenters know how to do the presidents job better than the president. Carry on. I have no doubt ball juice will figure it out! Ball juice figures everything out then moves to the next shiny object when it gets bored.
samiam
Yea, I’m sure ball jizz bloggers and the commenters know how to do the presidents job better than the president. Carry on. I have no doubt ball juice will figure it out! Ball jizz figures everything out then moves to the next shiny object when it gets bored.
samiam
Yea, I’m sure ball juice bloggers and the commenters know how to do the presidents job better than the president. Carry on.
ruemara
Everyone always forgets how much the Congressional Dems. have failed to have Obama’s back. No one seems to recall Nancy Pelosi swearing that she wasn’t going to rubber stamp whatever he wanted. It felt like they were running to the cameras to ensure that the last thing a democratic party representative would be to a the brand stinking new democratic party president, was loyal. Fucking cowards & morons, the entire lot of them.
kd bart
“Bully Pulpit”
Tata
My memories of the Bush Presidency are fading fast, but I recall something about signing statements changing the meaning and application of laws. Seems like something a President could do.
beergoggles
He could remove all american troops from gitmo and leave the doors open.
Make sure to leave directions for the prisoners to the states where the congressmen who voted against letting him close it live.
LosGatosCA
I think the blame belongs with your craven, WATB, gutless, bedwetting, willfully low information, basically ignorant fellow citizens.
The politicians are just the symptoms, not the problem.
Nobody forces anyone to watch Faux News for instance. Unbelievably, they watch it because they WANT to.
SRW1
@samiam: @samiam: @samiam:
All three of your personalities had something to say about this, or was it the echo in your head?
max
If anybody has a viable plan as to how President Obama can actually close Gitmo in this environment, where Congress keeps moving the goalposts and we keep re-electing 95% of the Congress I’m all ears.
Build a temporary prison either in (option A) Puerto Rico, or (option B) Afghanistan. Move all the remaining detainees there. Use a lot of C4 to demolish Gitmo and render it unusable. With Option B, you simply unlock the prison and leave with the end of war evacuation, after the Afghans have conspicuously demonstrated for some months. With option A, you let the Puerto Ricans demonstrate like crazy until Congress is too embarrassed to continue. (That last one is aiming for a 2017 end of the black prison.)
max
[‘In either event Gitmo goes away.’]
Betty Cracker
@LosGatosCA: This. The Gitmo detainees will probably die of old age there.
Spinwheel
Remember Obama can refuse to enforce terrible deportation laws but not terrible detainee laws.
Gravenstone
If the prisoners remaining can’t be brought into the US to secure facilities, then I guess Congress wants them to just be released into the world at large. I think Obama should threaten to do just that. Then as an added Fuck You, have the Navy level the emptied facility as a gunnery exercise. Good luck using that place again, you Republican fucks.
Gravenstone
@Spinwheel: Hey look everyone, Zandar’s pet stalker Shitheel is here. Go play in traffic, boy.
Egypt Steve
My plan for closing Gitmo is to wait for the next debt ceiling crisis, and then to actively court default. Obama would then have to start prioritizing government spending, and he could say that, to save other vital programs, he will cease spending money on Gitmo. I’d also shut down all federal offices in Republican Congressional districts, while I was at it.
PIGL
@Jack the Second: That would be a pretty good idea, since none of them are provably guilty of anything.
PIGL
@LosGatosCA: Don’t forget my favourite descriptors: “spiteful vicious pricks.” One of Ayn Rand’s tropes from Atlas Shrugged, about certain mistakes never being innocent, is applicable (as so very often) in reverse.
NorthLeft12
Really, WTF is wrong with those guys in Congress? I struggle to make any sense of this particular position.
And of course all of Obama’s critics will come down on him for this “failure of leadership”. God, I despise those media hacks.
gratuitous
Well, it will take some time* and effort, the expenditure of political capital, and (horror of horrors) actually doing something besides keeping our powder dry. It will mean ignoring the inevitable whining that will come from the usual quarters. It will mean having a good, sellable narrative for the public. One like, I dunno, “An American gulag is fundamentally against the Constitution and everything the United States is supposed to stand for, like freedom and the rule of law.”
It will require a White House unafraid to blame the predecessor administration for this ongoing crime against humanity, rather than cravenly consigning it to a dead past that can’t be changed or reinterpreted. It might even mean bringing criminal charges against some former high government officials. It’s going to take leadership, tenacity, backbone, and courage. It’s going to require that the President’s supporters have his back and endorse his efforts for no other reason than that it’s the right thing to do.
Upon consideration, it’s clear those poor people are going to die in Cuba.
*Please to take note of the very first requirement.
Marc
And then “progressives” complain about how Obama refuses to close Gitmo. ANOTHER PROMISE BROKEN!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@max:
It wouldn’t work. IIRC, if the new language is like the old language, Obama cannot “transfer” anyone without the receiving country’s permission and they have to provide various guarantees.
E,g, Cruz’s S2510:
So no money to move them.
Subsection (d) asks for a report on the 5 guys who went to Qatar in exchange for Bergdahl. Presumably the opponents want to use that report to gin-up opposition so that there won’t be any transfer even after the 90 or 180 days.
Supposedly the prison at Guantanamo is falling apart. Maybe that will be Obama’s leverage – “We can’t keep the guys because it is falling apart, and we can’t spend the money to fix it up because National Security and Sequestration and falling defense budgets demand that we spend the money elsewhere…”
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
The Ancient Randonneur
The bedwetters win again. What a bunch of cowards.
Egypt Steve
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Thanks for posting that legislation. But I notice that while the President can’t spend money to transfer prisoners on his own authority, he can do so if ordered by a court or “competent tribunal.” How about if he encourages the prisoners he wants to release to submit habeas corpus petitions, and he does not oppose them? If he’s ordered to release the prisoners, he can legally comply.
low-tech cyclist
I’ve got an idea:
Obama tells Congress, “I’m closing Gitmo as a prison on June 30, 2015. I will continue to maintain the facility and provide food as long as those currently imprisoned there remain there, but they will be free to swim out to any passing boat from July 1 on. If Congress feels that any of these prisoners should continue to be incarcerated after that date, Congress will need to provide authorization and funding for their transfer to Supermax prisons in the United States proper by June 30. Otherwise, they will go free. (The ball’s in your court, assholes.)”
The howls would be impressive, but I bet they’d blink.
LAC
Wait? What? Three branches of government? No magic? The president has failed me! That’s why I don’t vote! Both sides do it! Drones!!!!!
– the mind of an emo-progressive (2010-)
Emma
@mb: So you’re saying a President should ignore the law of the land and use the armed forces to impose his will.
There’s a name for that.
burnspbesq
@Spinwheel:
The first half of this statement is false, and I’m sure you know that.
The Department of Homeland Security is not refusing to enforce anything. It is setting enforcement priorities, exactly as Congress specifically instructed it to do.
Why, exactly, do you think it’s a good idea to buy into the Republicans’ false framing of the issue?
burnspbesq
@beergoggles:
And after the detainees all die of starvation, then what?
burnspbesq
@Egypt Steve:
The D.C. Circuit will find a way to keep them locked up. Or a Republican-controlled congress will fuck with habeas jurisdiction. Or both.
rikyrah
GItmo is not closed because of everyone BUT the President.
mclaren
The solution here is simple. Obama simply transfers the prisoners out of Gitmo by executive order.
When congress shrieks and passes more legislation, tough tit. It’s done. Game over.
Reagan did this all the time. So did the drunk-driving C-student and his torturer sidekick from 2001-2009. We live in post-legal America. Laws today are nothing but timid suggestions which elected representatives and muggers with badges feel free to ignore at their pleasure.
philadelphialawyer
Yawn. Only a couple of posters have it right. And the blogger dead wrong.
The President is Commander and Chief of the military. Guantanamo is a military facility and the prisoners are military prisoners. Obama could have let them all go, and closed down the facility (at least as far as it is a prison), on the day he took office in January, 2009.
Do it, and let the Congress whine and complain. Of course, both Houses of Congress in 2009 were run by Democrats, so it would only have been a Congressional minority that was whining and complaining. After that, they would no doubt have filed Federal lawsuits against Obama. Lawsuits that would have been laughed out of court.
But no. “Green Lantern.” “He. Didn’t. Even. Try.” Etc, etc.
Obama can do no wrong. Even when he did nothing at all, after promising to do a specific thing…..”Congress won’t le-et me” doesn’t cut it. Not because “Bully Pulpit” or “Green Lantern” or “Magic Lantern” or any other kind of lantern, but because the President has a lot of undefined power, and the Courts are loath to get involved when the President acts at or even slighter over the border of that undefined power. When Obama took office, there was no specific statute forbidding closure and release. Thus, he would have been acting in the absence of Congressional action, not contrary to it. In such cases, the courts defer.
To make a not particularly long story short, yes, actually, Obama could have closed the prison, and let all of these phony “terrorists” go. A long time ago. But, he didn’t.
Because he doesn’t really care about his campaign promises. Because he won’t stick his neck out. Because, despite all the hype, and “hope,” and the fainting teenage girls and the chanting of his name and so on and so forth, the fact is that Obama, when it comes to real “change,” is a mediocre, middle of the road, don’t wake waves, weakling of a president.
And, yeah, the poster who says that we should be a lot more worried about Obama’s wars in Syria and Iraq (which he managed to start without an AUMF from Congress), should worry us a lot more. Funny, Obama has all kinds of “guts” and no problem acting unilaterally, when he is doing the bidding of the war mongers. In Libya, and now in Syria/Iraq. But anything even vaguely peaceful or leftist or liberal or even just plain decent, like maybe letting go people who have been kept in cages for over a decade with only the flimsiest of due process, oh no, he would never do anything without the approval of the Senate (just like those merchants in the first installment of the horrible “new ” Star Wars).
Now, have at it. But I won’t be around to respond or even read.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Obama’s Executive Order Closing Guantanamo.
He tried that. It didn’t work.
Congress has the power of the purse. If he can’t spend money, he can’t do it. (This is post-Iran/Contra, remember.)
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
moops
If he gave the order in 2009, why wasn’t it carried out then? What was missing in his executive order? a deadline ?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@moops: NY Times:
Everything the military does cost money and there has to be an account to charge it to. When Congress says the President can’t spend money on something, that something can’t be done. (Unless, like the EO Obama issued on prioritizing immigration enforcement, new permits, etc., the funding doesn’t come from a line in the budget. The Guantanamo Prison can’t hold a bake sale to close itself – the money has to come from the budget…)
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
LAC
@philadelphialawyer: I have no doubt you will be hovering around, hoping that your brilliance will be noticed. Yawn…
SWMBO
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Maybe they can’t hold a bake sale, but if the money *$80 million) came from other sources, say, um, the Democratic Party or Bill Gates Foundation, could they close it then?
Sherparick
Glenn Greenwald will point to this as another Obama/Democrat “fail” and why they need to be punished by electing more Republicans and President Ted Cruz.