I think the specifics of Guantanamo is a larger failure of political will and ultimately there were a lot of forces fighting to keep it open [1]. Like a lot of

I think the specifics of Guantanamo is a larger failure of political will and ultimately there were a lot of forces fighting to keep it open [1]. Like a lot of clemency and efforts at prison reforms that would allow people to go freely during the day to return at night or on the weekends the fear of getting it wrong of releasing someone from Guantanamo and them going on to rejoin the fight was a huge barrier. The moral high ground of having closed it would be hard to defend against even just one or a handful of people released killing people. [1.5] It's the same with stuff like the Patriot act and the NSA programs. The government got spooked about letting it happen again and the FBI is able to keep just enough of a trickle of failed 'terrorist' [2] plots to make it seem like a reasonable threat. There's a big bias towards doing something in the world where the benefits of not doing something are hard to gauge. Fighting against all that is a lot of work politically and decisions have to be made about what's the priority for any administration. Obama chose healthcare and spent the years he had a majority focused on getting that through. Then after that he didn't control the house or the senate so he could only do so much via executive order and I think by that point he'd been steeped in the believers too long so didn't have the same zeal. > It makes you wonder if new presidents get "read in" on what the "puppet masters" are expecting of them (/s) or is each simply more corrupt than the last, regardless of Party. I think it's principally a combination of two things 1) they learn a lot more about all the national security than when they're not in the executive (excluding members of the intelligence committees and even they only get a picture of what's actually going on) and 2) they're suddenly surrounded by and being briefed by people who principally believe in these operations. Everyday some of the few people guaranteed a slice of the presidents time are people from the intelligence community who give him/her (eventually) their daily briefing after all. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/why-obama-has-failed-to-close-guantanamo https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/why-obama-has-... [1.5] Ultimately the whole thing was a giant mess because it was hastily done and once something is being done in the military it can be hard to change course unless there's a big push behind it. [2] For varying values of terrorist. Quite a few had no contact with anyone other than a government informant or agent for the length of their 'plot'!