Topics in the News: Guantanamo
Tim Ryan on Immigration
: Jun 26, 2019
Terrorists treated better than children at the border
Q: Should it be a crime to illegally cross the border? Or should it be a civil offense only?There are other provisions in the law that will allow you to prosecute people for coming over here if they're dealing drugs and other things.
There's no need to repeat it. It's abhorrent the way these kids are being treated. If you go to Guantanamo Bay, there are terrorists that are held that get better health care than those kids that have tried to cross the border in the United States.
The president should immediately ask doctors and nurses to go immediately down to the border and start taking care of these kids. The end result is now we've got kids literally laying in their own snot,
with three-week-old diapers that haven't been changed. We've got to tell this president that is not a sign of strength. That is a sign of weakness.
Click for Tim Ryan on other issues.
Source: June Democratic Primary debate (first night in Miami)
Donald Trump on Homeland Security
: Jan 30, 2018
Keep Guantanamo open; stop releases & add new prisoners
Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are evil. When possible, we annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them. But we must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy
combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are.In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield--including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi.
So today, I am keeping another promise. I just signed an order to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay.
I am also asking the Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and al-Qa'ida, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists--wherever we chase them down.
Click for Donald Trump on other issues.
Source: 2018 State of the Union address
Hillary Clinton on Homeland Security
: Feb 23, 2016
Close Guantanamo detention center
Hillary Clinton said that she backed President Obama's effort to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center but stressed the terrorist suspects would not necessarily be transferred to a military jail: "The president hasn't made any decisions about where
the transfers will go," Clinton said in South Carolina.Clinton was put on the spot when the president announced a new plan to shut down the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer dozens of high-risk terrorist
detainees to maximum security prisons in the United States, which could include the military facility in South Carolina. The plan immediately hit opposition from Republicans in Congress, who cited longstanding bipartisan opposition
to bringing captured terrorists to the US.
"The president is trying to figure out what to do with people who are too dangerous to be released," Clinton said. "All I can hope is that the Congress will work with him."
Click for Hillary Clinton on other issues.
Source: Washington Times, "Clinton backs GITMO closure"
Donald Trump on Homeland Security
: Feb 23, 2016
Keep Gitmo open, and load it up with bad dudes
Donald Trump promised to keep open the military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, then riffed on ways that he could do it on the cheap: "This morning I watched President Obama talking about Gitmo," said Trump. "Guantanamo Bay--which by the way,
we are keeping open! And we're going to load it up with some bad dudes. We're going to load it up."Trump then mused about one of the Obama administration's reasons for trying to shut the prison down: "Here's the thing
I didn't understand," he said. "We spend $40 million a month on maintaining this place? Now, think of it--$40 million a month! What do we have left in there, like, a hundred people, or something?
And we're spending $40 million? I would guarantee you I could do it for a tiny, tiny fraction. I don't mean $39 million. I mean maybe $5 million, maybe $3 million. Maybe, like, peanuts."
Click for Donald Trump on other issues.
Source: Washington Post, "Cuba should take over Guantanamo"
Michael Bennet on Homeland Security
: Oct 5, 2015
Mixed history on transferring Gitmo prisoners to US prisons
Democratic incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet is now voicing concern about transferring Guantanamo Bay detainees to Colorado despite voting three times against legislation that would have blocked terrorists from being moved to prisons in the US. Pentagon
officials are currently visiting prisons, including one medium-security facility in Colorado, to determine whether they could house Gitmo detainees.Bennet protested, "The Department of Defense has no authority to transfer these prisoners or make such
modifications and they have made no case that it makes sense to do so."
However, Bennet has not supported legislation that would have blocked the administration from transferring any Gitmo detainees, from 2009 through 2013.
He voted [against] amendment in 2009 that would have blocked funding to "construct or modify a facility in the United States or its territories to permanently or temporarily hold any individual held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
Click for Michael Bennet on other issues.
Source: Washington Free Beacon coverage of 2016 Colorado Senate race
Bernie Sanders on Homeland Security
: Sep 5, 2015
2009: Voted against closing Gitmo; 2015: supports closing it
Bernie supports closing the Guant namo Bay detention camp the United States maintains on the Cuban island, noting it has "significantly damaged the United States' moral standing, undermined our foreign policy, and encourage terrorism rather than
effectively combated it." His opinion refers to abuse and torture, as well as the unlawful detention of inmates at the military prison Amnesty International has called a "gulag of our times."In 2009 Bernie voted against the proposals the
Obama administration suggested for closing the prison. The bill was defeated with strong bipartisan support (90-6). Given Bernie's human rights concerns regarding the facility, he likely voted against it because the
plans did not address the human rights violations--including being held indefinitely without trial--that he and so many other Americans are most concerned about with regards to Guant namo.
Click for Bernie Sanders on other issues.
Source: 2016 grassroots campaign website FeelTheBern.org, "Issues"
Bernie Sanders on Homeland Security
: Jun 1, 2014
Don't let released terrorists get back onto the battlefield
Q: On the release of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl: Was this a wise thing for the president to do [exchanging one American POW held by the Taliban in Afghanistan for 5 terrorist suspects held in Guantanamo]?BERNIE SANDERS: I suspect that if you ask
Bergdahl's feelings about what happened, they will feel very, very good. I think we need to have more information about the long-term consequences, and do everything that we can to make sure that these terrorists do not get back onto the battlefield.
Click for Bernie Sanders on other issues.
Source: Face the Nation 2014 interview: 2016 presidential hopefuls
Barack Obama on Homeland Security
: Jun 8, 2011
OpEd: Failed promise to close Guantanamo loses left votes
Obama won a lot of the Left votes by promising to close Guantanamo and by claiming to be the anti-war candidate. But Guantanamo still operates and the American involvement in wars has escalated in Afghanistan and Libya. Some on the Left are so upset that
they want someone with Left credibility to run against Obama in the primaries. If many on the Left abandon Obama, he will lose a lot of fundraising sources. And he might lose enough votes in the swing states and lose the general election.
Click for Barack Obama on other issues.
Source: Why She Will Win, by Ron Paul Jones, p. 17
Jesse Ventura on Homeland Security
: Apr 4, 2011
Secret behavior control drug experiments on Gitmo detainees
It's recently come out that the Pentagon forced all the detainees at Guantanamo prison to take high doses of a drug called mefloquine. Supposedly it's used to combat malaria, but that didn't seem to make any difference. Our military brass knew that
mefloquine had severe side effects, like suicidal thoughts, hallucinations, and anxiety.To me, this shows the continuing influence of those "experts" we brought here from Germany after WWII. Here you have doctors stating that you need to know complete
background of the patient before using this substance--and they're injecting these people with this drug as soon as they're checked in!
A document from 2002 shows that "standard inprocessing orders for detainees" included 1,250 mg of mefloquine,
five times higher than the dose given to people as preventative. And it's being given not for its intended purpose, but to study its intended side effects! I'm speechless. What ever happened to the physician's oath to "do no harm"?
Click for Jesse Ventura on other issues.
Source: 63 Documents, by Gov. Jesse Ventura, p.273
Barack Obama on Homeland Security
: Jun 1, 2010
No habeas right for detainees outside of US
The Boumediene ruling [concluded in 2008] that prisoners in Guantanamo are entitled to the right of habeas corpus. The Bush administration decided to ship prisoners in Guantanamo to Bagram, in Afghanistan, as though it was some sort of a silly game--fly
your abducted prisoners to Guantanamo and they have constitutional rights, but fly them instead to Bagram and you can disappear them forever with no judicial process." Obama adopted the Bush position, "filing a brief in federal court that, in two
sentences, declared that it embraced the most extremist Bush theory on this issue." Obama's argument amounts to saying that prisoners flown to Bagram from anywhere in the world--in the case in question, Yemenis and Tunisians captured in Thailand and
UAE--"can be imprisoned indefinitely with no rights of any kind--as long as they are kept in Bagram rather than Guantanamo.". [This was] in radical violation of Obama's campaign promises and earlier stands."
Click for Barack Obama on other issues.
Source: Hopes and Prospects, by Noam Chomsky, p.262-263
Barack Obama on Homeland Security
: May 18, 2010
Moving Gitmo to Illinois was logistically & legally complex
The real issue [with closing Gitmo] was the difference between a political perspective and a legal one. Why couldn't the legal counsel's office figure out some way to keep those pesky resettlement questions out of Obama's face?The backdrop was the
administration's failure to fulfill one of Obama's most widely publicized promises: closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay by Jan. 1, 2010. Early in the transition a group of lawyers wrote a report for Obama explaining how legally and logistically complex
shutting the prison would be. After the Inauguration the Pentagon reported that finding a site in the US for the prisoners was difficult. When the government finally settled on an underused federal prison in Thomson, Illinois, planners learned that it
would take many months to renovate.
Without sustained presidential attention and someone assigned exclusively to Gitmo, closing the prison would be tough. For months, Obama simply let one of his signature campaign promises slip between the cracks.
Click for Barack Obama on other issues.
Source: The Promise: Obama Year One, by Jonathan Alter, p.340-341
Barack Obama on Homeland Security
: Apr 13, 2010
OpEd: Promised to close Guantanamo but it's still open
The litany of broken Obama promises is amazing:- He promised to get us out of Iraq. But we're still there.
- He promised cap and trade. But he hasn't produced.
- He said he'd end Don't Ask, Don't Tell and allow gays in the military.
But he hasn't.
- He promised not to raise taxes on the middle class. But he has.
- He said he'd bring down the deficit. But he's tripled it.
- He promised to close Guantanamo. But it's still open for business.
- He said he'd fix Social Security.
But he hasn't touched it.
- He promised to preserve Medicare. But he cut it by $500 billion.
- He said he'd reform immigration law. But it's the same as when he took office.
- He told Big Labor he'd make it possible to organize new unions without a
secret ballot. But that bill died.
You may disagree with many of these promises. You're probably glad they failed. But don't let that stop you from using them to defeat Obama.
Click for Barack Obama on other issues.
Source: Take Back America, by Dick Morris, p.262
Barack Obama on Homeland Security
: Sep 1, 2009
Promises to close Guantanamo & treat prisoners as POWs
The Bush administration argued that because [prisoners at Guantanamo] are not state-sponsored, they are not entitled to the usual protections of the Geneva Convention, and have no rights to our time-honored (and constitutionally guaranteed) principle of
habeas corpus. The Bush White House had been staunchly opposed to giving detainees access to civilian courts, later arguing that military tribunals sufficed. Constitutional lawyers argued--and the Supreme Court agreed--that such a position was
impermissible and that habeas corpus extends to those captured in a time of war even if they don't fit into traditional categories.President Barack Obama will close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and remove the "unlawful enemy combatants"
status from those detained. Both charges will accelerate resolution of the basic questions that remain: What is the adjudication process and what is the standard against which their actions will be measured to justify release?
Click for Barack Obama on other issues.
Source: The Test of our Times, by Tom Ridge, p.144-145
Barack Obama on Foreign Policy
: Jan 29, 2009
OpEd: Maintaining Guantanamo base violates international law
After taking office, Barack Obama said the decision to return to its legitimate owner of the territory occupied by the Guantanamo naval base required weighing up the extent to which the defensive capacity of the US would or would not be affected.
Soon afterwards he added, with regard to the return to Cuba of the occupied territory, that he would first consider what concessions to demand from Cuba to return.
This would amount to demanding a change of its political system, a price Cuba has been resisting for half a century.
To keep a military base in Cuba against the will of our people is a violation of the most elemental principles of
international law. The US president has the ability to abide by that law without exacting any concession whatsoever. Non-compliance would be an act of arrogance and an abuse of his immense power against a small country.
Click for Barack Obama on other issues.
Source: Obama and the Empire, by Fidel Castro, p. 18
Barack Obama on Homeland Security
: Dec 13, 2007
Restore habeas corpus to reach Muslims abroad
If you were a Muslim overseas listening to Rudy Giuliani say “they are coming here to try to kill you,” which is the tenor of many of the speeches that are delivered by Republicans, you would get an impression that they are not interested in talking and
resolving issues peacefully. Now, what we need to do [to reach Muslims] is we need to close Guantanamo. We need to restore habeas corpus. We need to send a strong signal that we are going to talk directly to not just our friends but also to our enemies.
Click for Barack Obama on other issues.
Source: 2007 Democratic radio debate on NPR
Barack Obama on Homeland Security
: Jun 19, 2007
Close Guantanamo and restore the right of habeas corpus
Why don’t we close Guantanamo and restore the right of habeas corpus, because that’s how we lead, not with the might of our military, but the power of our ideals and the power of our values. It’s time to show the world we’re not a country that ships
prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far off countries. We’re not a country that runs prisons which locks people away without ever telling them why they’re there or what they’re charged with. We’re not a country which preaches compassion to
others while we allow bodies to float down the streets of major American cities. That’s not who we are.We’re America. We’re a nation that liberated a continent from a mad man, that lifted ourselves from the depths of depression,
that won civil rights and women’s rights and voting rights for all our people. We’re the beacon that has led generations of weary travelers to find opportunity and liberty and hope on our doorstep. That’s who we are.
Click for Barack Obama on other issues.
Source: Take Back America 2007 Conference
Mike Gravel on Homeland Security
: Dec 25, 2006
Raze Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons to the ground
The Gravel Agenda: When elected President by the American people, I will:- Raze Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons to the ground;
- End the war against America’s veterans; and
-
Organize and leading an intelligence and police organization of willing nations, similar to NATO, to root out terrorism and addressing its causes through aggressive diplomacy.
Click for Mike Gravel on other issues.
Source: 2008 Presidential campaign website, gravel2008.us, “Issues”
Page last updated: Aug 01, 2019