The best power of all is to be free, but Obama is not a free person. He is a prisoner of a military system. He talked about closing Guantanamo and ending the war in Iraq. Now he's taken on another war. What's happening?
Adolfo Perez Esquivel
Each department and institution has its own authorities and responsibilities, and they act on that basis. It is wrong to even compare such actions to what is done in Guantanamo or elsewhere by the Americans. They do not stand on a high moral platform to preach to others.
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
The Bush administration opened several lines of attack against the rule of law and the integrity of an independent Justice Department. The scandals are so famous that they've been reduced to shorthand: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, NSA, Attorneygate.
Ari Melber
As of September 2012, 168 out of the 602 released Guantanamo Bay detainees are suspected of returning to terrorism. So, is this a winning scenario for the United States? Of course not.
Ben Shapiro
President Obama's decision not to go to Congress for help in establishing reasonable standards for the continued detention of Guantanamo detainees is a failure of leadership in the project of putting American law on a sound basis for a long-term confrontation with terrorism. It is bad for the country, for national security, and for civil liberties.
Benjamin Wittes
Many of the vicious criminals held there have been caught on the battlefield fighting against American troops and shutting down Guantanamo Bay would just require the military to move them elsewhere.
Bill Shuster
Obama and the Democrats were so critical of what Bush did, the interrogations, the secret prisons, Guantanamo and all of that, and even the war on terror. Obama won't use the word. He's made war on the war on terror.
Charles Krauthammer
Guantanamo Bay houses enemy combatants ranging from terrorist trainers and recruiters to bomb makers, would-be suicide bombers, and terrorist financiers.
Chris Chocola
I think the suffering, violence and cruelty and Guantanamo and the rest is going to go on and on in Iraq.
Clare Short
President Obama has been very clear as he laid out the goal, and the objective is to close Guantanamo.
Cliff Sloan
The overwhelming majority of Coloradans don't want Guantanamo Bay detainees in the United States or Colorado.
Cory Gardner
Guantanamo Bay is a facility that I think should be utilized by the United States for detainees, say, out of Syria.
This isn't a Republican issue. This isn't a Democrat issue. This is something that both parties and people around the country have agreed to. They don't want Guantanamo Bay detainees in the United States.
I abhor anything that constitutes torture. Water-boarding, it's perfectly clear to me it is torture. I never supported extraordinary rendition to torture, always said that Guantanamo should be closed. There is no clash of ideals and pragmatism there.
David Miliband
Simply put, Guantanamo is one of the best propaganda tools that terrorists have today. Our enemies use it to justify terrorism and recruit others to carry out violent jihad, and our allies continue to criticize it as a violation of the rule of law.
Dianne Feinstein
Let me say this: I believe closing Guantanamo is in our Nation's national security interest. Guantanamo is used not only by al-Qaida, but also by other nations, governments, and individuals - people good and bad - as a symbol of America's abuse of Muslims, and it is fanning the flames of anti-Americanism around the world.
In addition to being a terrorist recruiting tool, Guantanamo is a huge drain on taxpayer dollars.
There's no reason to think a Guantanamo detainee is any more likely to escape from Supermax than any other federal prisoner.
In July of 2006, I visited the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It was important for me to see Guantanamo firsthand and to meet the military personnel who are doing such a great job for our country.
Dick Durbin
At Guantanamo Bay, we could create a West Berlin, a free small city within the Communist nation that could trade freely with the U.S. and elect its own officials.
Elliott Abrams
Guantanamo is a chief recruiting tool for al-Qaida. It has put a wedge between the United States and at least some of its allies.
It troubled me that we had these reports of torture of detainees, we had people jailed at Guantanamo Bay who couldn't even talk to their lawyers and couldn't see the evidence against them - sort of fundamental bedrock civil liberties things.
What made Guantanamo such a travesty - and what still makes it such - is that it is a system of indefinite detention whereby human beings are put in cages for years and years without ever being charged with a crime.
Long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp. President Obama fully embraced indefinite detention - the defining injustice of Guantanamo - as his own policy.
I stand on my public record as a defender of the human rights of Muslims, notably my work for Moazzam Begg and other British Muslims detained without trial in Guantanamo Bay.
Things like Abu Ghraib and even Guantanamo are not new things: there are many precedents.
It wasn't a conscious decision to actually make a movie about Guantanamo Bay. It was a device.
My involvement with Guantanamo began as vice chief of staff.
The world is not kind to whistleblowers - a term of art with particular resonance in football, the most hierarchical and repressive of organized sports, a world of 'systems' and 'programs' and scripted plays, where reading a medical report requires a security clearance, and practice fields are patrolled like Guantanamo Bay.
The military is trying very hard right now to put a better face on Guantanamo, and I think they actually have tried to rid some of the extreme versions of abuse that we have read about.
And, in fact, there is a connection, the people who designed this here program and who implement it are the same people who are overseeing and helping in the interrogations of detainees in places like Guantanamo.
I mean, the people who run Guantanamo, the military, pretty much dismiss complaints by the detainees because they say that they're all created as part of a political process to sort of fake complaints and get public support.
Until the administration can articulate a coherent and convincing policy for closing Guantanamo, it should remain open.
The time has come for President Obama to formally rescind his order to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and end his irresponsible allegations of injustices at the facility, which operates in a framework that respects the rule of law, keeps terrorists off American soil, and bolsters our national security.
The White House has been noticeably schizophrenic on Guantanamo.
Second, the facility at Guantanamo Bay is necessary to national security.
Immigration is the most difficult issue I've ever dealt with, and I've dealt with some tough issues: drones, gays in the military, WikiLeaks, Guantanamo. But immigration is hardest because there are so few people willing to talk and build consensus. Everybody's firmly made up their mind. It's a polarized issue.
The war in Iraq, the abuse of detainees, electronic eavesdropping, Guantanamo Bay - these things were all done on our behalf and they may turn out in the end to have created more terrorists.
Guantanamo allows us to secure dangerous detainees without the risk of escape, while at the same time providing us with valuable intelligence information on how best to proceed in the war against terror and prevent future attacks.
Yesterday I, along with a bipartisan Congressional Delegation of lawmakers, inspected the detention facilities at Guantanamo used to house individuals detained in the War on Terrorism.
I was most impressed with the professionalism of our soldiers stationed there, and I am now more confident than ever that that the operations at Guantanamo are being conducted in a humane and necessary manner.
I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A. I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts.
What has happened at Guantanamo Bay... does not represent the will of the American people. I'm embarrassed about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people.
Torture is and must remain illegal. Warrantless wiretapping is also illegal, as was the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to Qatar without proper notice.
By the time President Obama took office, Guantanamo was viewed internationally as a symbol of a counterterrorism approach that flouted our laws and strayed from our values, undercutting the perceived legitimacy - and therefore the effectiveness - of our efforts.
A decision by the Supreme Court to subject Guantanamo to judicial review would eliminate these advantages.
American soldiers had to guard prisoners on the inside while receiving mortar and weapons fire from the outside. Guantanamo is distant from any battlefield, making it far more secure.
The Justices are currently considering a case, argued last month, which seeks to extend the writ of habeas corpus to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at Guantanamo.
The effort to blur the lines between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib reflects a deep misunderstanding about the different legal regimes that apply to Iraq and the war against al Qaeda.
If the inmates of Guantanamo want to make their nests in Uruguay, they can do it.
