Michele Flournoy, President Barack Obama’s newly minted Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, may have unwittingly given a preview of Obama’s big speech on the fate of terrorists currently held at Guantanamo Bay, when she spoke after the Senate overwhelmingly voted to strip funding for implementing the closure from the Administration’s supplemental budget request for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Flournoy essentially said that members of Congress who object to the terrorists being brought into their districts and states will just have to get over it.
[Flournoy] says members of Congress need to remember that closing the stigmatized prison in Cuba will mean hard choices for everyone. [...]
[She] says it’s unrealistic to think that no detainees will come to the U.S., and that the U.S. can’t ask allies to take detainees while refusing to take on the same burden.
Without singling anyone out, Flournoy said lawmakers need to think more “strategically.”
The Pentagon says Guantanamo terrorists are coming to the United States, so that Europe will feel better. Is this the Obama Administration’s plan? And will the president say so clearly in his speech today?
Left unanswered by Flournoy’s “strategic” thinking, is the question of why Guantanamo has to close at all given that the Obama Administration and a federal court judge now both believe that the United States can hold terrorist detainees indefinitely without charge.
The hidden truth in Flournoy’s statement is that the Obama Administration knows bringing these terrorists into the United States is a dangerous game that puts the American people at risk unnecessarily. Europe is insisting that the United States take some of the detainees on the grounds that the United States created the “problem” of Guantanamo in the first place, and as reassurance to their citizens that there really is nothing to fear from bringing these prisoners into their countries.
If that were true, and the president had any intention of honoring his campaign rhetoric, he would have transferred the prisoners to US soil already instead of trying to pawn them off on Europe. His bluff was called, and now Flournoy is admitting that the US will have to fold. Today, with large majorities of Congress and the American people against the idea, we will see if President Obama knows when to cut his losses.
Steve Maley
Moe Lane
Dan McLaughlin
Neil Stevens
Dear Barack. We cordially invite you to attend a Party of No meeting tonight.
6eorge Jetson (Diary) Thursday, May 21st at 8:28AM EST (link)Directions: Simple
Special Promotion Code: NO
Sincerely,
6eorge Jetson (N)
Little Barack Horner
6eorge Jetson (Diary) Thursday, May 21st at 8:42AM EST (link)backed into a corner
eating his Gitmo lies.
He stuck in his thumb
They cut off his head
and said what a dead boy am I
Just Say No
gitmo "detainees"
rick554 Thursday, May 21st at 8:52AM EST (link)I’m wondering how the Senators will feel when Barack HUSSEIN Obama tells them that their vote yesterday doesn’t mean squat. I’ll bet that , like good Democrats, they will roll over for the Messiah.
Pass the popcorn Nahanni!!
Rick554
The power of NIMBY
Kyle-MI (Diary) Thursday, May 21st at 10:25AM EST (link)They might roll over, but how would their voters feel? How popular do you think Obama or the Democrats will be in that district and state where the first Gitmo detainees show up?
They'll dump them in a Red one no doubt.
scarlos (Diary) Thursday, May 21st at 2:54PM EST (link)After all, why take the heat when you can give it to someone else?
Socialism is Oligarchy in disguise
Dump them in huntsville, Texas
izoneguy (Diary) Thursday, May 21st at 2:55PM EST (link)and then the guards will them do clean up duty on the side of the road….
Hmmm, they tried to escape…..
The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.
What we got here is failure to communicate.
molybdanthan (Diary) Friday, May 22nd at 2:35AM EST (link)Escape. That’s too easy. It should go down like this:
“Cool-hand Achmed, meet your new cellmate, Bubba. He’s real friendly. Bubba’s brother died in Iraq. Now, you two boys play nice, ya hear?”
He never speaks clearly
bnb614 Thursday, May 21st at 9:05AM EST (link)“And will the president say so clearly in his speech today?”
Does he ever say anything clearly? He will do his normal. Speak in circles, make it sound like he is agreeing with both sides, and in the end, he will not grow a spine and stake out a position. This is nothing but a PR event for his media lapdogs to help get the word out, and to stop the eroding support on this issue.
Who doesn't understand
10ksnooker (Diary) Thursday, May 21st at 9:29AM EST (link)Terrorists are called terrorist fpr a reason ZERO just doesn’t seem to get it, he isn’t King of Indonesia.
How didn't we guess it?
bnb614 Thursday, May 21st at 9:44AM EST (link)We weren’t seeing the forest for the trees. How could it not have made sense. Politico is saying that The One is going to say that the U.S. “lost its way” in the past 8 years by failing to trust our institutions and values.
So it boils down, like everything else “bad” as BlameBush. We should have seen it coming.
Lock them up or deport them
mallcopsaysno Thursday, May 21st at 11:19AM EST (link)I accept the closing of GTMO as inevitable. What I don’t accept is that these guys will be set free to wander the streets of major US cities. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen. Go ahead and roll them into the federal prison system as their charges are brought to court. If they’re found guilty, put them at the Supermax in Colorado. That’s the kind of place that doesn’t do prison breaks. If some are found innocent, and I accept that as inevitable too, deport them. Seems simple enough.
I refused to apologize for chickenhawking when told to.
Eisenhower was right.Deport them to where? (n/t)
Kyle-MI (Diary) Thursday, May 21st at 11:25AM EST (link)……..
Wherever they came from
mallcopsaysno Thursday, May 21st at 11:43AM EST (link)Send them back to Pakistan or Afghanistan. Can those countries really tell us no? I doubt it.
I refused to apologize for chickenhawking when told to.
Eisenhower was right.Transferring scumbags from Gitmo to US...
extirpates Thursday, May 21st at 11:19AM EST (link)The American people have to be more open and forgiving of cowards and murders;
any prisoner who can swim from Cuba to Florida should be considered as a candidate for transfer.
Can’t ask allies to take detainees?
Marcus_Traianus (Diary) Thursday, May 21st at 11:26AM EST (link)Really? Gee, silly me- I thought the “allies” were just repatriating their own citizens who are running around the world trying to kill our soldiers.
We took back American citizens who are terrorists and put them in our hole of choice. Just ask Lindh, et al.
What trash, these Obamaites can’t even make a cogent argument based on fact without substituting mendacity, half truths and feel good, kiss our “allies” butt statements.
“Both of our political parties, at least the honest portion of them, agree conscientiously in the same object—the public good; but they differ essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that good. One side believes it best done by one composition of the governing powers; the other, by a different one. One fears most the ignorance of the people; the other, the selfishness of rulers independent of them. Which is right, time and experience will prove.”.Thomas Jefferson
I am glad we have found another way to apologize to France...
rcov092 (Diary) Thursday, May 21st at 12:12PM EST (link)for saving them from the nazis. I vote we sen them to Illinois. They gave us Obama and besides Durbin was one to vote for the funds. They will also then be close to Levin who was alos one of the six to vote for the funds.
“Not One Red Dime for the NRSC or NRCC till they stop trying to elect liberals”
Join the RedState Strike Force
If the idea of super-max US prisons
johnt Thursday, May 21st at 2:01PM EST (link)is meant to allay our fears, as no one has ever escaped from one why not keep them at Gitmo? Or has there been a rash of escapes I missed,
Is the end game to give the American courts a greater hand once these non-Geneva Convention murderers are on US soil?
Obama wouldn’t do that would he?
“a man’s admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him”. Tocqueville
So that Europe would feel better?!
abbynormal Thursday, May 21st at 3:38PM EST (link)So that Saudi Arabia would feel better, is more like it.
For what it’s worth:
WarEagle01 (Diary) Thursday, May 21st at 4:07PM EST (link)Here is a list of federal prisons with supermax facilities. The only federal prison that is entirely supermax is the one in Florence, AZ. I’ve also listed the congressperson in whose district the facility is located and the senators from that state. By my count it is evenly split: 11 Dems and 11 Republicans.
United States Penitentiary Tucson – Tucson, Arizona: Gabrielle Giffords (D-8), McCain (R), Kyl (R)
U.S. Penitentiary Florence ADMAX (Administrative Maximum) Facility – Florence, Arizona: Ann Kirkpatrick (D-1), McCain (R), Kyl (R)
United States Penitentiary – Atwater, California: Dennis A. Cardoza
(D-CA-18th), Boxer (D), Feinstein (D)
United States Penitentiary – Coleman, Florida: Ginny Brown-Waite (R-5), Martinez (R), Nelson (D)
United States Penitentiary – Atlanta, Georgia: John Lewis (D-5), Chambliss (R), Isaakson (R)
United States Penitentiary – Terre Haute, Indiana: Brad Ellsworth (D-8), Lugar (R), Bay (D)
United States Penitentiary – Allenwood, Pennsylvania: Glenn Thompson (R-5), Casey (D), Specter (D)
United States Penitentiary – Beaumont, Texas: Ted Poe (R-2), Cornyn (R), Hutchison (R)
*prison info is from wikipedia and congress info is from congress.org
“A wise, doughy leg with rich tingly experiences will always reach better conclusions than will a more tanned, muscular leg that hasn’t felt those thrills.” –Chris Matthews’ Leg
“The alternative to the awful extremity of abortion is the indispensable joy of introducing this flawed world to someone who might make it better.”–John Hayward (AKA Dr. Zero)
In his usual lightning speed
katesmith (Diary) Friday, May 22nd at 1:52AM EST (link)The same day the Senate voted overwhelmingly that prisoners should not be brought to the US, Soros/Obama announced they were bringing one to NY . Now, Thursday, they announce they’re bringing more. Aside from being suicidal and homicidal, isn’t this grounds for impeachment? Or. at least formal censure?