Demonstrators gathered in Washington, D.C., London and elsewhere today to protest the continued operation of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, which took in its first prisoners 14 years ago.
Obama says he WILL close Gitmo. Soon after that, I expect him to give our Navy base at Guantanamo Bay back to Cuba. pic.twitter.com/TNiRubnnMM
— ?? Neil Russo "I am the NRA" ?? ?? ?? (@neilinozone) January 11, 2016
The good news for protesters: word from White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough is that President Obama is getting ready to present his plan to close Guantanamo soon — not quite within the one-year deadline he set for himself in 2008, but “soon.”
.@Denis44: The President has said we will close Guantanamo, it's bad for national security and too costly. #FNS
— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) January 10, 2016
Also, @Denis44 tells @FoxNewsSunday that @POTUS determined to shut Gitmo detention facility "so next pres not confronted by it."
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) January 10, 2016
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said Barack Obama is about to present a plan to close Guantanamo soon. https://t.co/IwZdB2glIR
— reported.ly (@reportedly) January 11, 2016
President Obama is preparing a plan to close Guantanamo Bay https://t.co/7l0RMxvYgP pic.twitter.com/1UhMSGHqdg
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) January 10, 2016
Obama to unveil new plan to close Guantanamo, as evidence mounts that it inspires terrorism https://t.co/7X2Ie9Djua pic.twitter.com/YqCMashD1a
— Alice Miranda Ollstein (@AliceOllstein) January 11, 2016
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About that mounting evidence: even PolitiFact had to admit last month that the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes was correct in claiming that Guantanamo Bay wasn’t a key recruiting tool for terrorists, and an analysis of jihadist propaganda materials showed that Guantanamo was rarely mentioned.
As far as McDonough’s claim that a plan to close Guantanamo is coming soon, President Obama himself announced the same thing at a fundraiser last November. And speaking of anniversaries, in last year’s State of the Union address, the president promised that he would not relent in his determination to shut down Guantanamo. And last summer he announced that the White House was in the “final stages” of drafting a plan to close the terrorist detention center.
The only plan at this point that appears even close to be happening “soon” seems to be to quietly release all of the detainees and then let the next president try his or her hand at air strikes.
Pentagon: Gitmo population to soon drop below 100 https://t.co/mdM0olZeup
— serambi aceh (@serambi_aceh) January 11, 2016
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