Obama Looks To Close Down Guantanamo Bay
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 by Connie T.

President-elect Barack Obama has said that he will close Guantanamo Bay, aka
Gitmo, during his presidency. According to his campaign, the Obama administration will immediately review the
files of the 250 detainees at Guantanamo as soon as Barack takes office.
"President-elect Obama has said
throughout his campaign that the legal framework at Guantanamo has failed to successfully and swiftly prosecute terrorists,
and he shares the broad bipartisan belief that Guantanamo should be closed," said
Obama's foreign policy advisor, Denis McDonough. How and where to try the detainees has yet to be determined.
The White House confirmed last week that President George W. Bush has no plans to close Gitmo Bay before leaving
office on January 20th.
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is located at the southeastern end of Cuba, and is opposed
by the Cuban government because of alleged discrepancies between the lease and international law. The Bush Administration
has maintained that Guantanamo detainees are not protected under the Geneva Convention, which prohibits harsh
interrogation methods and torture.
Obama has called Guantanamo a "sad chapter in American history."
Laurence
Tribe, a professor in law at Harvard and one of Obama's legal advisors, has said that a revamped version of the current
court system for detainees needs to be established.
"It would have to be some sort of hybrid that involves
military commissions that actually administer justice rather than just serve as kangaroo courts," Tribe said.
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