4 Years After Vow to Close Gitmo, Why Has Obama Signed NDAA Bill Barring Transfer of Its Prisoners?

[rachel1]

DemocracyNow.org - Four years after vowing to close Guantánamo and 11 years after it opened, President Obama has signed the National Defense Authorization Act barring the use of federal funds to transfer detainees from the notorious prison to U.S. soil. Of the 166 prisoners remaining at Guantánamo, 86 have been cleared for release. Obama says he signed the NDAA's renewal despite his objections to the Guantánamo provisions and maintained in a signing statement the right to override them, but Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, says Obama's avowal amounts to no more than a "press release."

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[customerserviceguy]

1. Because he knows what's left are extremely dangerous mofo's?

Even after re-election worries are gone, he knows that whoever's still there are bad news. Frankly, I'd be relieved if there was a firing squad to clean the place out completely.

[Enrique]

2. 86 cleared for release

in the second sentence in the OP

[truth2power]

3. More duplicity by Obama...

Some here apparently believe torture isn't still going on under Obama, in some manner such as rendition etc.

Chris Hedges sued Pres. Obama for for the part of the NDAA that allows American citizens to be arrested and held without trial until the end of hostilities in the GWOT, which is essentially forever.

He won, initially, but the Obama administration appealed and won. Hedges says his lawyers believe that the only reason the Obama admin. was so frantic to get the original decision overturned is that they are already detaining American citizens at black sites around the world.

Not that they'd worry about international law, anyway.