Finally Closing Guantanamo

For a while now, George Bush has claimed he wants to close Guantanamo Bay but like the possibility for anything positive happening under the worst President ever, nothing happened. On the campaign trail Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates promised to close the misbegotten facility where Bush suspended the laws of our democracy for those he and members of his Administration wanted to torture detainees without a fair trial. Republicans claimed that Obama was all words and no action, but when he becomes our 44th President, he'll have a plan of action waiting so that we can end the life of that miserable prison in Cuba.

From The Huffington Post:

Under plans being put together in Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

A third group of detainees _ the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information _ might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks. Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans aren't final.

The move would be a sharp deviation from the Bush administration, which established military tribunals to prosecute detainees at the Navy base in Cuba and strongly opposes bringing prisoners to the United States. Obama's Republican challenger, John McCain, had also pledged to close Guantanamo. But McCain opposed criminal trials, saying the Bush administration's tribunals should continue on U.S. soil.

The plan being developed by Obama's team has been championed by legal scholars from both political parties. But it is almost certain to face opposition from Republicans who oppose bringing terrorism suspects to the U.S. and from Democrats who oppose creating a new court system with fewer rights for detainees.

President-Elect Obama realizes the importance of closing the prison. Not only does it help those wrongly detained without access to our justice system, it is a stain upon our nation and can be seen throughout the world. The beacon of freedom, democracy and the rule of law that we once were before George Bush can be restored, and Barack Obama is the man to do it. The remaining Republicans in Congress and the Senate may try to oppose it, but the best remember many of them will be up for re-election in just two years' time.

Happy Anniversary Guantanamo!

Isn't it amazing how we've stuck together after all of these years. All of the torture, dehumanization, stripping of habeus corpus and destroying the Constitution. It sure has been good times for the Bush Administration and their one and only Guantanamo Bay facility. In most loving relationships those around them seek to foster more good years to come, but I'd rather pledge for the two to be divorced immediately and commit Guantanamo so that no one gets hurt from this day forward.

In all seriousness, six years is far too long for the U.S. to condone torture and prohibit the due process of law for the detainees on our military base in Cuba. Six years ago today the military brought the first 20 men over and since then hundreds more to follow. Many of these detainees were sold to the military from Pakistan and local warlords to profit off of the "war on terror." Many have never even seen a court room, let alone the evidence that is supposedly holding them away from their families and their country.

Today, New Yorkers will be praying during the lunch hour down at Foley Square for this sad chapter of American history to come to an end. Across the country, from Maine to Hawaii, Americans are standing up and having their voices heard. Will George Bush listen? Of course not, but the candidates hear us and while some want to double or triple Guantanamo, thankfully all of the Democratic candidates pledge to shut down the facility along with some of the Republicans.

It'll be a great day when we won't have to commiserate over a seventh anniversary for these terrible two.