Pentagon Finding Ways to Thwart Prisoner Release, Closing of Gitmo

By Dan Calabrese

The Obama Administration has had three Defense Secretaries – Robert Gates (who was a Bush Administration holdover), Chuck Hagel (who was apparently undercut on a regular basis and then pushed out) and now Ash Carter. Two Republicans and now a Democrat. But one thing all of them apparently have had in common is a disinclination to cooperate with Obama’s dream of closing the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay.

And according to a Reuters report this morning, the Pentagon has consistently stonewalled attempts release prisons and to position Gitmo for the ultimate closing that would fulfill one of Obama’s most prominent and ill-conceived campaign promises:In interviews with multiple current and former administration officials involved in the effort to close Guantanamo, Reuters found that the struggle over Ba Odah’s medical records was part of a pattern. Since Obama took office in 2009, these people said, Pentagon officials have been throwing up bureaucratic obstacles to thwart the president’s plan to close Guantanamo.

Negotiating prisoner releases with the Pentagon was like “punching a pillow,” said James Dobbins, the State Department special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2013 to 2014. Defense Department officials “would come to a meeting, they would not make a counter-argument,” he said. “And then nothing would happen.”

Pentagon delays, he said, resulted in four Afghan detainees spending an additional four years in Guantanamo after being approved for transfer.

In other cases, the transfers of six prisoners to Uruguay, five to Kazakhstan, one to Mauritania and one to Britain were delayed for months or years by Pentagon resistance or inaction, officials said.

To slow prisoner transfers, Pentagon officials have refused to provide photographs, complete medical records and other basic documentation to foreign governments willing to take detainees, administration officials said. They have made it increasingly difficult for foreign delegations to visit Guantanamo, limited the time foreign officials can interview detainees and barred delegations from spending the night at Guantanamo.

Partly as a result of the Pentagon’s maneuvers, it is increasingly doubtful that Obama will fulfill a pledge he made in the 2008 presidential election: to close the detention center at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama criticized President George W. Bush for having set up the prison for foreigners seized in the “War on Terror” after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., and then keeping them there for years without trial.

Do note Reuters’s infamous use of scare quotes when referencing the War on Terror. To Reuters, this was probably a story exposing malfeasance by the Pentagon, which should be bowing down in service to the great king Obama. But in reality is tells us a lot about the dysfunction that persists under a president who likes to talk a lot but has never really understood how to lead.

Obama is the commander in chief. The Pentagon answers to him. If transferring these prisoners and ultimately closing the prison is the high priority he said it was during the 2008 campaign, an effective executive would make sure his Defense Secretary gets to the bottom of the defiance within the ranks and ends the stonewalling. It’s clearly not an agenda of just one Secretary of Defense if it’s persisted through the tenures of three of them. The military is deeply suspicious – with good reason – of Obama’s agenda to close the prison.

And it’s clear from this pattern of behavior that the military neither respects nor fears Obama. If they did, they wouldn’t continually undermine one of his top priorities. They would fear repercussions, not only from him but from the Pentagon leadership who would be under orders from an effective president to make heads roll if necessary.

This story also demonstrates a lot about the true nature of Guantanamo as opposed to the way liberals and their media servants portray it. The prison is a concept developed by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld to detain the worst terrorists caught on the field of battle – people we would not want to send back to their home countries for fear that they would return to terrorist activities, but whom we would not want to bring to our soil and put into our criminal justice system for fear they would end up getting sprung on legal technicalities.

The solution was to put them in a prison at a naval base in a country with whom we have (or had) no diplomatic relations. The U.S. presence at Guantanamo Bay long predated the communist revolution in Cuba, and once Castro took over in 1957, he had no ability to kick the U.S. Navy out of the place. All he could do was refuse to cash the checks when we sent the lease payments.

So Gitmo was the perfect solution to a vexing problem, and we very much still need it – because in case you haven’t noticed in recent months, terrorism remains a very real problem. The Pentagon clearly understands this and has throughout Obama’s presidency, unlike their boss, who prefers to believe the threat of terrorism is overblown and should be de-emphasized so we can focus on trying to make the weather colder.

This is what you get when you elect a president who a) makes ill-advised promises; and b) comes to the job with no real leadership or executive experience. The insolent rebels at the Pentagon are saving lives by making it impossible for Obama to close the prison. They’re also showing the world – or all who care to pay attention – just how incompetent a president we currently have. They don’t respect him. They won’t follow his orders. And he can’t seem to do anything about it.

When does this end? And please tell me, American electorate, you’re not going to make an even bigger mistake the next time.

http://canadafreepress.com/article/77795

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