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Obama admits defeat on Camp X-Ray closure

By David Usborne, US Editor

Thursday, 19 November 2009

President Barack Obama admitted yesterday what his aides and other Washington insiders have known for months: that his deadline for closing the Camp X-Ray prison inside the Guantanamo Bay naval base on 22 January – the first anniversary of his coming into office – will not now be met.

"I knew it was going to be hard," Mr Obama told an interviewer with Fox News, before leaving China for South Korea on the last leg of his Asian tour.

"We are on a path and a process where I would anticipate that Guantanamo will be closed next year," he added, but declined to offer a new date.

The pledge to close Guantanamo was part of Mr Obama's push to dissociate himself from the anti-terror policies of George Bush. At the same time, he also outlawed the use of torture on terror suspects.

However, the Guantanamo promise has proved hard to honour, not least because of the difficulty of deciding where the detainees should go. Other countries have been reluctant to take the inmates, but holding them in facilities on American soil is proving to be equally problematic.

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Obummer made a bummer? I am shocked, shocked!
[info]find_empire wrote:
Thursday, 19 November 2009 at 06:49 am (UTC)
Just what has this fake-ass Kenyan poseur ever done in his life anyway? What did he ever accomplish that made him so confident he was qualified to be POTUS? Oh yeah, he helped his Chicago buddy Tony Rezko embezzle federal funds to become a slumlord, leaving his own constitutents - the poor people who believed his "hope" and "change" hype - freezing in the winter. He then settled in a whopping big mansion partly paid for by Rezko, who is now in jail, while Obama managed to get his name expunged from all court documents. Obama did OK for himself and his crooked buddies, no question about it. Is that how he sees his current job description?

Apparently yes. True to form, he started bailing out his Wall Street wheeler-dealer buddies as soon as he stepped into the White House. No delays or difficulties there, shoveling trillions of taxpayer money into the pockets of inveterate Wall Street gamblers went off like a breeze. So did escalating Bush's pipeline war and spreading it to Pakistan. No problem there either. But whenever it comes to doing something for non-crooks, non-billionaires, that does not involve destroying the planet, or torturing or killing people, Obama has the dangdest time getting anything done. Gitmo? Aww shucks? Jobs? Aww shucks. Climate action? Aww shucks. Palestine? Aww shucks. Iran? Aww shucks. Gays in the military? Aww shucks. Prosecuting torturers? Aww shucks. Health care? Aww shucks.
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Super power
[info]stickytruth2 wrote:
Thursday, 19 November 2009 at 06:50 am (UTC)
The Americans are always shouting we are a SUPER POWER, yes they are a power of the three 'D'
Deceit, Destruction & Death
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It's all Bush's fault
[info]find_empire wrote:
Thursday, 19 November 2009 at 06:59 am (UTC)
For Obamaheads, their Kenyan messiah can do no wrong. If he made a bummer, it's Bush's fault or it's the Republicans who are making him do it. They may have voted their Kenyan candidate into power and turned the US congress over to the dems but the evil GOP'ers still secretly control the country as we all know. Nothing poor kind-hearted Obama can do it about. Cheney keeps popping out of his secret location and points his shotgun at his head. Bush keeps making harassing phone calls at night, threatening to read My Pet Goat to him. Poor little innocent lovey-dovey Obama, the only thing those evil GOP'ers let him do is bomb Afghan weddings, expand Bagram torture-prison, and prop up bankrupt Wall Street gamblers.
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No Surprise
[info]rain1950 wrote:
Friday, 20 November 2009 at 07:31 am (UTC)
I expected him to back track on his promise. Seems he has not followed through on many of his promises like ending the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He is beginning to do much of nothing about everything.
No the star everyone thought he would be, I an totally disgusted with this one. Guess the Israeli lobby tells them what to do just in the UK.
344 US House of Representatives voted to condemn the Goldstone report on Israel /Gaza War http://wp.me/p4271-1xO

Israeli Lobby Groups in Britain http://www.indybay.org/news...
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