So Obama’s promise to close Gitmo was prevented by Congress passing a law PROHIBITING closure. One vote for preventing closure: Sanders’s vote.
Here’s Sanders’s run on paragraph from 2009 that has to substitute for an explanation of his 2009 vote for the law that prevented Obama from closing Gitmo.
www.bobcesca.com/...
"A number of important questions remain unanswered regarding the rather complicated issue of not just how you close down the facility, but what you do with the prisoners,” he added. “Are there some who should be released, are there others who should be returned to their home countries, are we confident that under Bush the correct determinations were made with respect to these prisoners’ status as ‘enemy combatants’? In order to answer these questions, President Obama has appointed a high-level committee of top administration officials who will be issuing a report in the coming months. I think that it is prudent to review that plan they develop before we spend $80 million in taxpayer money.”
1) Here’s the usual Sanders M.O. of having a bunch of issues that someone else should be thinking about, someone else figuring out an answer for, and then someone else doing something. At least he’s not saying the revolution will deal with it. I can’t figure out what Sanders stands for except for the questioner to leave him alone and bother someone else with this stuff. Classic kicking of responsibility for even thinking to someone else.
2)Sanders balking at $80M to close, compared with the money spent to keep Gitmo open, compared to big ticket items he proposes without a thought to cost, can only be seen as disingenuous.
UPDATE:
From the comments, we have the most awesomest combination of self righteous prattle and disavowal of responsibility. From Politico:
Bernie Sanders praised President Barack Obama's proposal to shut down the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay on Tuesday, while attacking the voting record of Hillary Clinton, his former Senate colleague, in the process.
"I am encouraged to see that the president is sending Congress a plan to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison. As I have said for years, the prison at Guantanamo must be closed as quickly as possible," Sanders said in a statement released through his campaign. "Others, including my opponent, have not always agreed with me."
“As I have said in the years after I prevented Gitmo from closing with a permanent law binding the President’s hands, Gitmo should be closed as soon as possible. Others, including me, have not always agreed with me”.