During his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to close the military prison known as Guantanamo Bay. In his last year in office, President Obama is going to try to make good on that promise. In February 2016, President Obama announced his executive order to close Guantanamo Bay.
But closing Guantanamo Bay will face challenges from Congress, as many bills President Obama has put to Congress faced. During his press conference, President Obama discussed the challenges and his frustration with closing Guantanamo Bay.
“I am very cleareyed about the hurdles to finally closing Guantánamo: The politics of this are tough. I don’t want to pass this problem on to the next president, whoever it is. And if, as a nation, we don’t deal with this now, when will we deal with it?”
President Obama called for Guantanamo Bay to be closed as it has hurt American alliances, aided in the recruitment of terrorist and drained tax payer dollars. Senator Marco Rubio immediately responded by saying, “Not only are we not going to close Guantánamo, when I am president, if we capture a terrorist alive, they are not getting a court hearing in Manhattan. They are not going to be sent to Nevada. They are going to Guantanamo, and we are going to find out everything they know.” Not only will President Obama try to close Guantanamo Bay in his last year of office, President Obama will try to fill the Supreme Court Justice seat voided by the death of associate justice Antonin Scalia.
Leave a response