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There’s zero chance he couldn’t have shut it down. Military installation. C in C. He could have found a way and it wouldn’t even have taken much effort. He just

There’s zero chance he couldn’t have shut it down. Military installation. C in C. He could have found a way and it wouldn’t even have taken much effort. He just wanted the political cover of consent from congress and chickened out when he couldn’t get it.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
From what I remember, Congress refused to let the prisoners be kept on the mainland, so ya, Obama could shut it down but then what? We’ve already released or sent to prisons in other countries, what we can, but there are some weird edge cases (30) that need congressional authorization to deal with. In many cases the USA can’t even send these people back to their home countries (eg Uighurs and China), so the only option would be to let them settle in the USA as refugees. A lot of people are really against that.
- vundercind 3y ago
  I tend to agree with analyses that factor in the relative weakness of the US executive on some fronts, but in this case it’s a situation AFAI recall entirely created by the executive. Novel and probably very fucking illegal classification for the prisoners? An executive invention. Decision to put them where they are now? Executive. Operational control of that facility? It’s military, so, executive. Decision not to move forward with (if nothing else) military trials in all cases, and just hold some of them indefinitely? Executive. How could it not be possible for the executive to undo a situation that was 100% its creation? Fact is, there was no actual will to follow through, and probably never was an intention to try very hard to begin with. [edit] it wouldn’t bother me much except 1) he said he’d do it, already well aware of the challenges and kinds of push-back he’d see, then didn’t do more than try one weak-sauce approach that let him pass the buck and shrug; cowardly as hell, and 2) it was probably the least messy part of the Bush-era disaster to untangle, as far as military and international affairs go (not forgetting the economic crash), and he couldn’t even do that much. If he’d made good progress on the other, worse parts, I’d probably entirely excuse this failure, but he didn’t.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    They are definitely executive inventions. The problem is that Obama didn’t invent those, he inherited a mess from the last guy. Yes this could have all been avoided by simply not keeping people in Guantanamo. But yes, if Obama couldn’t untangle the least messy part of Bush, he didn’t have much hope of untangling the messier parts of bush, which didn’t happen either. The whole Bush legacy is just one train wreck after another that are still haunting us. I shudder to think what damage Trump could have done if he was as competent in his execution as Bush. We are (mostly) computer scientists, and should realize that reversing something isn’t always feasible with the same amount of energy, or even any amount of energy. Some things are just broken and are going to stay that way (well, the prisoners will eventually age out).
    - vundercind 3y ago
      Yeah, amicable disagreement on some fine points there but bigger picture I’d say we’re not too far apart. Agree that it seems everyone’s decided we’re just gonna wait until they all die. I can’t recall the last time I encountered a story about the “detainees”, even—it’s on nobody’s radar, which, to be fair, there’s been some other stuff going on. Christ, I hope all the ones left are actually-really-bad, what an absolute nightmare if they’re not, and I guess the public will never really find out for sure. For that matter, how depressing must it be to be to work in that prison complex? Guarding prisoners we’ve dragged halfway around the world just to stick in cages, spending way more on each (capture, transportation, indefinite detention) than they’d probably collectively have made in their lives, who’ve already been there for many years, who’ve been forgotten and will never see justice anywhere near the standard we usually expect, just waiting for the poor souls to kick the bucket so we can finish entirely forgetting about them. Oof. Must be demoralizing as hell. Good exchange, thanks for the perspective.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

From what I remember, Congress refused to let the prisoners be kept on the mainland, so ya, Obama could shut it down but then what? We’ve already released or sent to prisons in other countries, what we can, but there are some weird edge cases (30) that need congressional authorization to deal with. In many cases the USA can’t even send these people back to their home countries (eg Uighurs and China), so the only option would be to let them settle in the USA as refugees. A lot of people are really against that.

vundercind 3y ago
I tend to agree with analyses that factor in the relative weakness of the US executive on some fronts, but in this case it’s a situation AFAI recall entirely created by the executive. Novel and probably very fucking illegal classification for the prisoners? An executive invention. Decision to put them where they are now? Executive. Operational control of that facility? It’s military, so, executive. Decision not to move forward with (if nothing else) military trials in all cases, and just hold some of them indefinitely? Executive. How could it not be possible for the executive to undo a situation that was 100% its creation? Fact is, there was no actual will to follow through, and probably never was an intention to try very hard to begin with. [edit] it wouldn’t bother me much except 1) he said he’d do it, already well aware of the challenges and kinds of push-back he’d see, then didn’t do more than try one weak-sauce approach that let him pass the buck and shrug; cowardly as hell, and 2) it was probably the least messy part of the Bush-era disaster to untangle, as far as military and international affairs go (not forgetting the economic crash), and he couldn’t even do that much. If he’d made good progress on the other, worse parts, I’d probably entirely excuse this failure, but he didn’t.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  They are definitely executive inventions. The problem is that Obama didn’t invent those, he inherited a mess from the last guy. Yes this could have all been avoided by simply not keeping people in Guantanamo. But yes, if Obama couldn’t untangle the least messy part of Bush, he didn’t have much hope of untangling the messier parts of bush, which didn’t happen either. The whole Bush legacy is just one train wreck after another that are still haunting us. I shudder to think what damage Trump could have done if he was as competent in his execution as Bush. We are (mostly) computer scientists, and should realize that reversing something isn’t always feasible with the same amount of energy, or even any amount of energy. Some things are just broken and are going to stay that way (well, the prisoners will eventually age out).
  - vundercind 3y ago
    Yeah, amicable disagreement on some fine points there but bigger picture I’d say we’re not too far apart. Agree that it seems everyone’s decided we’re just gonna wait until they all die. I can’t recall the last time I encountered a story about the “detainees”, even—it’s on nobody’s radar, which, to be fair, there’s been some other stuff going on. Christ, I hope all the ones left are actually-really-bad, what an absolute nightmare if they’re not, and I guess the public will never really find out for sure. For that matter, how depressing must it be to be to work in that prison complex? Guarding prisoners we’ve dragged halfway around the world just to stick in cages, spending way more on each (capture, transportation, indefinite detention) than they’d probably collectively have made in their lives, who’ve already been there for many years, who’ve been forgotten and will never see justice anywhere near the standard we usually expect, just waiting for the poor souls to kick the bucket so we can finish entirely forgetting about them. Oof. Must be demoralizing as hell. Good exchange, thanks for the perspective.