Now President Obama is battling House Democrats on closing Guantanamo Bay:

Top House Democrats raised tensions with the White House on a key foreign policy goal, rebuffing a request for funding to begin closing the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President Barack Obama has sought $80 million to begin the process of closing the controversial detention facility, as part of broader legislation needed to continue funding for the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Unveiling the House version of war spending bill, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D., Wisc.) didn’t include the funds, complaining that the administration has not yet developed a clear plan to wind down operations at Guantanamo and relocate the detainees, either abroad or in the U.S.

You can’t argue with that. It’s about time someone asked for some clarification on this runaway policy. The planned shuttering of Guantanamo was declared in an executive order without Obama having ever given a single specific reason:

In view of the significant concerns raised by these detentions, both within the United States and internationally, prompt and appropriate disposition of the individuals currently detained at Guantánamo and closure of the facilities in which they are detained would further the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice.

“Significant concerns” isn’t much of a justification, but there it is. It was a chilling failure of American public discourse that let this decision go by without so much as a raised eyebrow. On top of the decision, of course, come the myriad problems of actually closing the place and relocating detainees. Other countries might have shared Obama’s “significant concerns,” but they are unwilling to share the burden of housing dangerous terror suspects. Moreover, the legal tangle of trying these suspects as regular criminals has the Obama team now reconsidering the military court system the Bush administration used to try Guantanamo detainees.

As David Obey said, “When they have a plan, they’re welcome to come back and talk to us.” It will be a while.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 9:58 AM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.