There's been a lot that I've been critical of President Obama lately. I won't go into all the issues here that I disagree with him on. Frankly, that would take a whole other diary... perhaps for another day.
But there's been one popular misconception about an issue the POTUS has been blamed for that is really not his fault, i.e., the closing of Guantánamo Prison. This is a case in which he called for the closing of the entire facility while campaigning for his first term, and it was one of the first bills he signed as president back in 2009. But since that day, congress members of both parties first blocked funding for the bill then injected riders in the legislation blocking the transference of any Gitmo inmates to the U.S. both for interment purposes and criminal trials.
The issue turned out to be the president's first failure in his first term, and while complicit Democrats are mostly silent on the issue to this day, Republicans still enjoy hammering the president with it all the time.
Republicans in the House Armed Services Committee have earmarked $69 million dollars for a new secret prison at Guantánamo even though the Pentagon says it hasn't asked for it.
Miami Herald
Some members of Congress want to build a new secret prison for the alleged 9/11 mastermind and other former CIA captives at Guantánamo, a project once proposed by the U.S. Southern Command but then dropped because of a lack of support from the Obama administration.
Republicans at the House Armed Services Committee inserted $69 million for the new “high-value detainee complex” in its spending bill Wednesday night that earmarked a total of $93 million for new construction at the prison camps in Cuba.
It's a typical day in the U.S. Congress: the president wants to tear something down, and to spite him, Republicans in Congress vote to build that something up.
During the five year tug-of-war between the White House and Congress this is the latest move at the Capitol to thwart the president's ambition to close the infamous complex where about 2,200 soldiers and civilian staff are still responsible for the remaining 154 war-on-terror captives interned there.
But the proposed project is not yet a done deal.
Construction, however, is not certain. The money could be removed from the legislation as the massive National Defense Authorization Bill goes through the full Congress. The same funding bill also forbids the transfer of any Guantánamo prisoner to the United States for trial or further detention.
U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, the second-highest-ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee after retiring chairman Buck McKeon of California, argued for the new secret prison at the committee meeting that approved the bill Wednesday night. He announced that the U.S. Army notified Congress more than a year ago that it was designing a new “high-value detainee complex at Guantánamo Bay.”
The military calls the complex "Camp 7" and it's built on a secret location at the base, and is run by a secret U.S. Army unit called
Task Force Platinum.
“The one they have now is falling apart,” Thornberry announced Wednesday.
Seems like yet another good reason to shut it down, IMO.
The Defense Department declined to include the new building project in its proposed 2015 budget, leaving the military to say its engineers would reinforce the secret building rather than build a new one.
Then Wednesday, Thornberry revived the issue by reading from what he described as a communication from the Department of the Army:
“Existing facilities have far exceeded their service life expectancy and are deteriorating rapidly. The inefficiencies experienced in proper separation, seclusion and control of the occupants put Joint Task Force Guantánamo staff at risk … If this project is not funded detainees will continue to be housed in facilities that will degrade to the point of risking failure to meet operational, life and health-safety standards.”
Thornberry added that the Army needed the new prison, “not only for the detainees but for our folks.”
To me, this issue has become a prime example of how Republicans in Congress (and some Democrats) work diligently to thwart the president's agenda by standing up for the shadowy MIC agenda. Thornberry is not only thumbing his nose at the president; he's also placing the interests of defense contractors over that of the Pentagon itself.
If so inclined, please contact U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry and remind the congressman that he needs to start working in the best interests of the country... not lobbyists for the MIC.
There's much more at The Miami Herald.