The media blames the Congress for refusing to fund the facilities needed to move and try the detainees on US soil and the fear Americans have of these detainees being released by the courts because torture was used to extract confessions from them. But these reasons/excuses were just as much in play before the 2008 election as they are today.
In my opinion Obama knew full well the storm of discontent he'd face if he tried to close Gitmo, he knew but instead of saying he'd 'try' he said he'd 'do' it in his first year in office. Then after winning instead of usng his considerable rhetorical skill to educate Americans about the constitution's gauranteed rights, instead of using the bully pulpit as a platform to condemn torture and the illegal/immoral illogic that supported it he caved immediately.
Obama said what what would get him the most votes then did what his opponents wanted all along. Be it Gitmo, or the Patriot Act or pollution, or so many other topics Obama lied to get elected and now must be held accountable by those he deceived. Like in the 2010 mid-term elections those who believed his lies, those whose hope for 'change you can believe in' were aroused have a choice again in 2012 and like in 2010 they won't go out and vote for the Republicans, they'll stay home.
The right to a fair trial can't be parsed into good guys and bad guys. Rights are gauranteed to all for a reason, and every American should be afraid, not because 171 men in Gitmo have been denied their rights, but because if 'they' can be detained indefinately without charge gitmo so can you and i.
Guantánamo at 10: The Defeat of Liberty by Fear - The story of Guantánamo's 10th anniversary and the deterioration of civil and human rights in post-9/11 America is a story about what fear will do – the breakdown of a body politic that occurs when a country attacks its own constitution in the name of defending it.
