A few days ago, Congress made it impossible for President Obama to close Gitmo. The vote was the definition of bipartisan, with many Democrats going along with Republicans. For example, it was 91-3 in the U.S. Senate! To be fair, the vote was for the defense spending bill that included Gitmo.
President Obama never played his cards correctly on this issue.
First, closing Gitmo was always about politics and pandering to the base. He signed an executive order in his first week as president. Did he consult the military or national security team? Probably not. Was there any urgency in the country to close Gitmo? The answer is no. I think that most Americans understand that holding prisoners is a part of war. Gitmo was always an issue in left-wing precincts and not the country as a whole.
Second, President Obama never addressed the nation to make his case. He could have argued as commander in chief that Gitmo is no longer necessary. Instead, he repeated the nonsense that Gitmo was a recruiting tool, a bit of nonsense that few believe anymore.
In other words, was ISIS inspired to over run Iraqi cities or kill Christians because of Gitmo? The answer is that we left a vacuum and ISIS filled it.
Third, the bipartisan vote confirms just how much Democrat opposition to Gitmo was about politics. They were all for closing Gitmo because they knew that President Bush would veto the idea. They flipped against Gitmo when they feared that President Obama’s decision would put a major terrorist in their district’s maximum security prison.
So Gitmo will be around for a while, unless President Obama issues an executive order to close it.
President 45 will have to decide what’s next for Gitmo. I hope that he or she will start bringing new terrorists to the prison so we can get more information about these terrorist organizations. We are in a war, are we not?
My guess is that Secretary Clinton hopes that this is the last that we hear about closing Gitmo. This is a general election loser for Democrats.
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