The Guantanamo Mess

Guantanamo has been nothing short of a disaster since the allegations of torture that were used on the inmates and I completely agree with the author's opinions on the subject of Guantanamo. President Obama found himself in a catch-22 in how to deal with the problem that he was left with by the previous administration. While I would never agree with the torture methods that were supposedly used on the prisoners, one would have to be completely ignorant to believe that these methods were only being used at this location. Any base that is used to detain prisoners would have used that same methods as Guantanamo did, the American people merely wanted a scapegoat so they could blame someone and somehow preserve their sense of morality. I do however, agree that President Obama was far too hasty in setting a random date for the base to be closed down and he was a little too eager to show one of his motions of change. I believe that he was trying to cash in on his popular campaign slogan of change he decided to try to make a series of sweeping changes to try to show the American people that he was not following the path that was left by his largely unpopular predecessor. However now that the base is under orders to be closed down so quickly we are bumping up against major issues like where to keep the prisoners and which prisoners to keep. Some of the people that are being held there are too dangerous to be released back into the public where they would try to harm the American people. While I do understand President Obama was under considerable pressure to close the base he was premature in the date that he set for closure. President Obama has indicated that he would be moving some of the prisoners back to their home countries to be kept there and some would be tried in court, however a majority would be relocated to an undisclosed location in the States. I strongly disagree with this course of action. I believe that the facility that they were kept at was the best option to hold them, the American people clamored for the closure of Guantanamo because they knew that the base existed. I especially disagree with keeping the prisoners on American soil, in my opinion Guantanamo was the perfect place to hold prisoners, it is on an island that is not connected to the United States and thereby making it safer for the American people. Senators like McCain have been harsh on President Obama's timetable for closure, no country is terribly thrilled about detaining the prisoners in their country and we don't want them here. While Senator McCain is correct in his misgivings about the closure of the base, he does not have a solution that will fix the problem. I thought that the author did a good job making the point that this problem has been a lot of blame and insinuations as to the competency of the current administration's ability to handle this situation and in the mean time nothing s being done. I agree that this issue will take a bipartisan effort to accomplish any kind of rational solution to this complex and pressing problem.