Another Obama myth has bitten the dust. President Obama was supposedly going to cajole European countries into taking in former Guantanamo detainees. As Peter Finn wrote in the Washington Post this past December:
European nations have begun intensive discussions both within and among their governments on whether to resettle detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a significant overture to the incoming Obama administration, according to senior European officials and U.S. diplomats.
The willingness to consider accepting prisoners who cannot be returned to their home countries, because of fears they may be tortured there, represents a major change in attitude on the part of European governments. Repeated requests from the Bush administration that European allies accept some Guantanamo Bay detainees received only refusals.
So how has that turned out, less than two months later? One by one, European countries have declined to absorb detainees. And with today’s refusal from Italy, Nancy Pelosi admitted, “I don’t think we’ll see a situation where the president will be asking countries to accept people.”
How thoughtful of him.
