ORANGE RAIN SLICKERS: $18
POSTER BOARD AND SHARPIES: $8
HAVING YOUR FIRST TEMPER-TANTRUM BECAUSE THE MESSIAH ISN'T TURNING OUT TO BE WHAT YOU THOUGHT HE'D BE: Priceless
Ok, all the pageantry of the day is over. I'm tired, burned out from watching the endless hand-waving and fake looks of surprise/wonder. My other two companion pieces to this one pretty much express my exhausted mental registry of today's events.
This first action of President Obama has to come as a furious letdown: instead of simply closing the Camp Guantanamo Bay right away, like he led everyone to believe he would do, Obama has started a 120-day review of the cases left in Gitmo's schedule of war tribunals. He may find one of these enemy combatants worth detaining, for all we know. After all, he is an attorney.
This has to be a terribly hard pill to swallow for the trust-fund kiddies and homeless-looking women in the above photos.
Four months???? But there are people being tortured right now in GITMO, remember? Your man Barry should be brought up on impeachment charges, by your standards!
How can you save those detainees if Obama might actually keep Gitmo open while he goes forward on a particular case, which could go on and on...keeping the Bush nightmare alive for even more years? Oh, the melancholy you must feel, valiant protestor.
Here's an article on this earliest of action by Barry In Charge:
Hours after being sworn in as US President, Barack Obama has called for a halt to Guantanamo war crimes tribunals, a move which will begin the long awaited process of dismantling the prison itself.
His request for a 120-day suspension of all 21 pending tribunals will bring to a halt the case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind and four co-defendants who faced the death penalty if convicted.
Military judges are expected to rule on Mr Obama's request to halt the trials today at the US naval base.
The request by Mr Obama was widely anticipated - he had already vowed to close down the prison and its controversial military commission trial system.
"In order to permit the newly inaugurated president and his administration time to review the military commission process, generally, and the cases currently pending before the military commissions, specifically, the secretary of defense has, by order of the president directed the chief prosecutor to seek continuances of 120 days in all pending case," prosecutor Clay Trivett said, in the written request to the judges.
The request said that freezing the trials until May 20 would give the new administration time to evaluate the cases and decide what forum best suits any future prosecution.
About 245 foreign captives are still held at the detention centre that opened in January 2002. The Bush administration had said it planned to try 80 prisoners on war crimes charges, but only three cases have been completed.
Defence lawyers had complained that the tribunals allowed hearsay evidence and coerced testimony, and were the subject of so much political interference that fairness was impossible. (source)
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