Saying it was damaging to US interests to keep holding prisoners in legal limbo at Guantanamo Bay, US President Barack Obama renewed an old vow on Tuesday to close the camp, where about 100 inmates are on hunger strike to protest against their years in detention without trial.
Human rights groups welcomed Obama’s recommitment to shutting the prison. However, some activists called for action, not just words, and said the president could take some steps on his own without hitting congressional obstacles.
“It’s not sustainable — I mean, the notion that we’re going to continue to keep over 100 individuals in a no-man’s land in perpetuity,” Obama said.
“Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe,” he added. “It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us, in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.”
Obama lamented the “status quo,” which has kept most prisoners in detention without trial or charge since the prison was set up at the US naval base in Cuba in 2002 to hold foreign terrorism suspects.
Obama, who repeatedly pledged to close the camp when he was campaigning for a first term and after he first took office in 2009, put the blame on the US Congress for his failure to make good on his promise and said he would re-engage with lawmakers on the issue.
The US military has said that 21 prisoners are being force-fed liquid meals through tubes inserted in their noses. Forty medical personnel have been sent to reinforce the military’s existing teams at the prison to deal with the hunger strike.
Several inmates have given harrowing accounts of force-feeding and the practice has been criticized by rights groups, and also by the American Medical Association.
On Thursday, the president of the association sent a letter to US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel reiterating the association’s position that it is a violation of medical ethics to force-feed mentally competent adults who refuse food and life-saving treatment.
Asked about the force-feeding, Obama defended it, saying: “I don’t want these individuals to die.”
While Obama acknowledged an uphill fight and provided few specifics on how to overcome legal and political obstacles, White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden later said he was weighing a range of options.
Meanwhile, Obama on Tuesday warned against a rush to judgement on chemical weapons in Syria, but said proof of their use would trigger a “rethink” of his reluctance to use military force.
As critics complain that he let Syria cross a US “red line,” Obama said Washington believed chemical weapons had been used in the country’s civil war, but did not know exactly who had fired them.
At a White House news conference, Obama also appeared to set the criteria for a US military intervention as established proof that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime directly ordered the use of chemical weapons.
Obama faced the press amid rising political pressure over reports by US intelligence that Syrian forces used sarin gas against rebel forces, despite his previous warnings that deploying chemical weapons would be a “game changer.”
“I’ve got to make sure I’ve got the facts. That’s what the American people would expect,” Obama said. “If I can establish in a way that not only the United States, but also the international community, feel confident in the use of chemical weapons by the [al-]Assad regime, then that is a game changer.”
“By game changer, I mean we would have to rethink the range of options that are available to us. There are options that are available to me that are on the shelf right now that we have not deployed, and that’s a spectrum of options,” Obama said.
He added that he had asked the Pentagon for plans, but did not divulge them.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan
RSS