The Senate, by a veto-proof 91-3 margin, passed a revamped defense spending bill on Tuesday that still contains provisions intended to prevent President Obama from closing Guantánamo Bay prison.
The bill already passed the House 370-58, also more than enough votes to override a veto, should it come to that.
Obama vetoed the bill last month, citing both funding disagreements and language intended to ban all transfers of Guantánamo prisoners to the United States, heighten the barrier to shift them overseas, and prohibit moves to specific countries.
Since then, lawmakers essentially acceded to his budget demands, cutting funding for sweetheart programs and authorizing $715 million to help Iraqi forces fight Islamic State rebels, among other changes.
But the Guantánamo provisions remain.
Obama cited the bill’s Guantánamo problems as some of the most important in a rare veto-signing ceremony on October 23.
“This legislation specifically impeded our ability to close Guantánamo in a way that I have repeatedly argued is counterproductive to our efforts to defeat terrorism around the world,” he said. “Guantánamo is one of the premiere mechanisms for jihadists to recruit. It’s time for us to close it. It is outdated; it’s expensive; it’s been there for years. And we can do better in terms of keeping our people safe while making sure that we are consistent with our values.”
What Obama does now is not clear. Even when not faced with veto-proof majorities, he has caved to Congressional demands about Guantánamo before, first threatening vetoes then signing the bills anyway.
Closing the controversial Cuban military lock-up has been a goal for Obama since his first full day in office in 2009. He vowed by executive order to close it within a year, but Republicans in Congress began chipping away immediately.
Obama might get more committed with only a few months left to go in his presidency, however. The White House has hinted at a last ditch effort to close the prison and send detainees to a new facility in the United States; representatives have been shopping around in Colorado, Kansas, and South Carolina for a new prison site. Obama could go out on his own and try to close the prison with a new executive order.
As former Obama administration lawyers Gregory Craig and Cliff Sloan argued in a Washington Post opinion piece on Saturday, Obama doesn’t need Congress’s permission. “Under Article II of the Constitution, the president has exclusive authority to determine the facilities in which military detainees are held. Obama has the authority to move forward. He should use it,” they wrote.
What a blight on America’s soul. Our forefathers would never have agreed with indefinite detention and secret trials. Shameful.
Where were the heros when Guantanamo was opened??
They don’t hate us for our freedom. They hate us for our abuses.
Although detainees may be better off in Guantanamo than in prisons on US soil like ADX Florence supermax, where the tiny cells have tiny slits as windows and not even the sky is visible. Not sure if the solution would be better than the problem for a more humane treatment of prisoners
I’ve been saying this for years.. Obama has always had the power to close Gitmo as CINC of the military. He could load all the prisoners on a Navy ship, sail them into NY harbor with the press and FBI waiting at the dock. I think he’s been using the Congress as an excuse, not to act.
Every good person wants the truly guilty to punished but punishing the wrong persons makes all of us less safe – since 2001 more than 80% of Guantanamo detainees there is absolutely no evidence and no sworn testimony indicating any ties to terrorism whatsoever. Most of the detainees were sold to American and coalition troops by tribal chieftains with ulterior motives. In other words most Gitmo detainees since 2001 are crime “victims” or political prisoners.
Members of the executive, legislative and judicial branches may someday face war crimes charges if they don’t close Guantanamo immediately. Congress should be issuing official apologies and compensating these crime victims.
I have a bridge for you Jenna.
Obama does what he is told. He does what is required. He has loyality to others who are not the people of the USA. Its all a game of shadows and illusion. The rest is window dressing.
You people who believe anything a politican says are trusting children who want to believe in the false promise of hope and change . I can understand the desire to do so.
I also know that democracy is a con. So keep voting for Bernie or Jill or Donald or Hillary but know nothing will fix the Great Satan that is America.
As Joe Lydon once said “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
I wouldn’t include Bernie and Jill into your group of sellouts..”great satan?” ..jees..so jaded….jihadi language is getting really boring..You stay home on election day and I’ll vote for Bernie and maybe those of us who still have hope can turn things around here..
Bernie is worse than a sellout. He is a Hillary enabler.
Putting your head in the sand isn’t the same thing as having hope. Maybe you should read this and who is really in control…
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/11/11/437259/US-Foreign-Assistance-report
But…maybe you’re part of the problem.
I second blah’s comment, specifically concerning Jill Stein (Bernie Sanders is a sellout and more of a hawk in foreign policy). She is nothing like the others; she actually has a conscience, and has gone to jail for nonviolently following through with what she believes in. Plus she was disappeared for some hours in 2012 for demanding that she get let into the CPD debate that took place that night. Part of the corrupt Establishment, she is not, and I will gladly vote for her next year.
Wow…is she superwoman who can chain AIPAC to the wall? Will she turn the military into honest humanitarians that they claim to be? Will she really tell you all good things like Obama did and then say “Ah, gottcha”? Will she tell ISIS to quietly not look for anymore US aid and to stop terrorizing everybody? (And can McCain and all the vile warmongers up there in the Whitewash Outhouse?) Will she finally tell Israel to disarm and proclaim their nukes like everyone else does and give back the land of Palestine? (cause 2 states are ‘still’ a possible dream?)
Really?
The solution is to vote third party. If you don’t vote at all because you can’t get fully behind a candidate, they just call you lazy and unengaged and too ignorant to understand the issues.
But if a whole bunch of people voted third party, that would send the message that we are paying attention and we don’t like what we are being offered by the two main parties and we have made the effort to actually vote and it wasn’t for Bernie or Jill or Donald or Hillary.
It doesn’t matter which third party you vote for. It really doesn’t! A vote for a third party is a vote against the status quo. Vote third party.
With Guantanamo the U.S. has screwed itself past, present, and future. By which I mean:
a) The extraordinary abuses and detention without trial there have made a mockery of the U.S. “democratic” ideals. The country had no moral leadership to apply to Arab Spring, no moral credit to draw on for anything else. I mean, Xi Jinping is the most oppressive Chinese leader since the “fall of communism” and even so my reaction to Obama’s warning that rejecting the TPP could leave the Chinese to set the terms of a trade treaty is … can they do a worse job?
b) The failure to ‘break’ or ‘turn’ Guantanamo prisoners makes the Enemy seem monolithic, unstoppable, and unintimidatable. There’s not one person I’ve ever read about at that base who has ever said screw this terrorism stuff, screw Allah, I’m ripping up my Koran and begging to get let into democratic civilization. It’s the flip side of American moral bankruptcy when we see these people implying that the most screwed-up ideals are still stronger than no ideals at all.
c) The obvious risk of continuing Guantanamo is that al-Qaida has been skillful and determined at getting its people out of places. Sooner or later they are going to tunnel in however many miles from the nearest Cuban town, or arrange a daring strong-arm raid from an oceangoing vessel. And then the U.S. is going to have to sit there and watch while some progressive country knowingly allows al Qaida to bring its people in, and offers them permanent asylum, because of the horrors of that prison. It will be a complete turnover regarding which government is legitimate and which isn’t between U.S. and a terrorist organization.
When in the future history of this planet, should those mankind who subscribe to the same tenants laid out in the Magna Carta discover how the psychopaths on this planet finally overcame any and all resistance to tyranny , I hope they burn this planet, so no possible escape of the last vestiges of human scum ever evolve to the point of interplanetary infestation through the universe. I mean..look around you.
Hi Jenna
Would you be able to expand or follow up on your article with an explanation why democratic senators failed to align themselves to their leaders position?
Why would his own party do this to him? Is it embarrassing? Doesn’t it show great divisions in the party?
Why didn’t Steny Hoyer whip the votes? What is going on and why in an election cycle would they undermine the president in such a public fashion?
Great question!
“The White House has hinted at a last ditch effort to close the prison and send detainees to a new facility in the United States; representatives have been shopping around…for a new prison site.”
Smh. For me it’s not about WHERE the prison is, but the fact THAT IT EXISTS in the first place.
Utterly despicable. Here’s a brief history of the occupied Cuban territory called Guantanamo Bay Prison http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/11000
Life Inside Guantanamo Prison Torture and Abuse (Shocking Documentary) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bXyOONpuIw
Maybe Obama needs to spend some time locked up, tortured, and humiliated by his own military. United States of Depravity
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGpaOp6_I7M
CIA’s Secret Prisons in Europe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAkWNyOTbvA
It’s time to try them in court. Way past time.
Funny how Obama wrings his hands over the letter of the law on Gitmo but is fine with extralegal military operations inside Syria.
Also bombing Libya after congressional vote not to authorize it shows he has no problem ignoring congress when it suits him, and no fear of any consequences.
Remind you of the Iran-Contra debacle?
Polls say that the people say that” this is the most do nothing congress ever”, proving everyone right again,while voting themselve more $ &privilege, pay should be principle progress & performance related, most would be forced to seek other employment. Truely shameful, have the congress any principles whatsoever? Other than $ gain &privilege from political career? Have they never read”Do unto others as you would others do to you”The Bible Would they like to akk stay at Gitmo? Why not? Is it ok for others? most of the 800 now proven innocent. Racism, discrimination elitism immorality? place their rights above others?
As casual as he’s always been in signing Executive Orders, if Obama had any intentions of using that tool to take down Gitmo he would have already done so. This is all bread and circuses by way of smoke and mirrors.
I vote to lock Congress up indefinitely in Gitmo. They will not be missed.
The U.S. government could simply default on payment on its lease agreement for the whole base with Cuba and return it…
Cuba hasn’t been cashing the rent checks for years. They want us gone. Effectively we are squatting.