Obama restarts Guantanamo trials after 2 years

[Admiral Yi]

On the Russian side of the reset they've signed up to a seemingly pretty successful and very strong sanctions regime on Iran.  But how is that different from what Bush or McCain would have done?  Were you going to 'liberate' them or issue strongly worded statements (which Bush didn't) on Georgian indpendence day?

McCain was talking during the campaign about booting them from the G-whatever.

I've heard nothing at all about this pretty successful and very strong sanctions regime.  Got any details?  When did it start?

[grumbler]

How many Hitlers can you have in a row?

We haven't had any Hitlers in a row.  We've had three worse than Hitlers, though.

[Razgovory]

This is fair and I feel the civil libertarians are the one group who can genuinely claim to have been betrayed by Obama.  The rest are moaners or didn't pay enough attention to what was actually being said.

You say that as if it's some small faction.  I'd say a rather sizable chunk of Obama supporters wanted Gitmo shut down.

Is it greater or less then the number of Birthers in the GOP?

[Sheilbh]

You say that as if it's some small faction.  I'd say a rather sizable chunk of Obama supporters wanted Gitmo shut down.

He won over 50% of the vote.  I think lots of people wanted him to shut it down,  I think the number of people for whom that's their issue, that's their thing is far, far smaller.  Civil libertarians are a small but noble bunch who will almost always be disappointed

I've heard nothing at all about this pretty successful and very strong sanctions regime.  Got any details?  When did it start?

June 2010.  From what I've read they're far stronger than the regimes voted in in 2008.  In fact I'd read that the combination of stuxnet and sanctions had caused real problems for the Iranian program and the regime.

[The Minsky Moment]

There is nothing inherently bad about having a detention facility at Guantanamo Bay; it's not like there is some insurmountable problem with the feng shui there.  The problem was always about the policy of how to handle the detainees there.  That problem could have occurred whether the detainees were housed in Guam, the Colorado supermax, or if they re-opened Alcatraz.