Colin Powell says Guantanamo should be closed

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Sunday the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay for foreign terrorism suspects should be immediately closed and its inmates moved to the United States.
[…]
“Guantanamo has become a major, major problem … in the way the world perceives America and if it were up to me I would close Guantanamo not tomorrow but this afternoon … and I would not let any of those people go. I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system,” Powell told NBC’s Meet the Press.

“Essentially, we have shaken the belief the world had in America’s justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open and creating things like the military commission. We don’t need it and it is causing us far more damage than any good we get for it,” he added.



  1. SJP says:

    “EVEN”?!? Like he’s on the Bush team?

  2. Improbus says:

    “We don’t need it and it is causing us far more damage than any good we get for it,”

    Duh, seriously.

  3. Mister Mustard says:

    Everyone with a brain thinks Gitmo should be closed. Think it’s a coincidence that Powell quit Dumbya’s team?

  4. sdf says:

    Hmmm, I wonder if he’ll be invited to the RNC — oh that’s right, he’s not a real patriot anymore.

  5. Jägermeister says:

    I’m amazed that Colin Powell was/is a Republican. He was the only one in Bush’s administration who had brains… and they kicked him out.

  6. bobbo says:

    Even? Like he has any credibility at all?? Like George Tenent, such a statement would have been relevant when the issue was relevant. Now, stating what every\body knows is just emphasizes what a failure he is.

    What do people in power do with their authority?? —Just about anything to keep it. That Powell has any residue of respect, only shows how polluted the pool has become.

  7. Uncle Dave says:

    FYI, for those who didn’t get it, my using ‘Even’ in the title was meant to be ironic. A little late to the obvious.

    In other words, what’s surprising is it took him so long to say so. Even that he is saying so. I wonder if he’s saying this and the other comments he’s making to, oh, I don’t know, say, position himself as being a potential Dem VP candidate?

  8. Angel H. Wong says:

    But but but…

    Guantanamo teaches the youn’ ones the pleasure of making the life of dark skinned folk a living hell.

  9. bobbo says:

    Hes on MSNBC Meet the Press in one hour. I’ll look at him like I do any politician. Its dissapointing that irony doesn’t announce itself but even on re-read the irony escapes me. ((Cut to comedy bit re definition or irony vs sarcasm vs poetic justice etc))

    If he is a paragon of virtue then EVEN he has no irony because the virtuous should act virtuously. So now, if he is just a political hack, and EVEN he says Gitmo should be closed, then again he is just stating the obvious, again not ironic. And if Powell was a Bush Co supporter who now is against Gitmo, that only adds emphasis as a statement against self-interest, not irony.

    Ironic would be if Gonzales got sentenced to Gitmo and he didn’t want to go there because he didn’t want to be tortured?

    Now, having written all that, let me look up the word.

    Irony: 1–Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs==nope

    2–A trope that involves incongruity between what is expected and what occurs==nope

    3–Witty language used to convey insults or scorn

    Nevermind.

  10. OmarThe Alien says:

    Never did like Gitmo; six weeks of hell crewing a guided missile destroyer through RefTra, Harbor police gave me a speeding ticket whilst I was piloting the Captain’s gig towards fleet landing, with the Captain on board (he got real cranky) and after I hit a guy with a chair, to my chagrin, he got up and knocked my two front teeth out. Two weeks of sucking soup through the stitches, no doubt about it, Gitmo super sux.

  11. noname says:

    Too little too late.

    He is now just a BLOW HEART spewing DOUBLE SPEAK:: Speaking after the fact, not working or doing anything meaningfully with his abilities to close GITMO.

  12. Mister Mustard says:

    “BLOW HEART”??

    Wasn’t that a Mel Gibson movie?

  13. MikeN says:

    And he never said Gitmo is illegal. Just that the liberals’ whining about it has made it impractical from a PR standpoint.

  14. BertDawg says:

    FWIW – General Powell was the impetus for the somewhat premature cessation of hostilities that ended Gulf War 1. According to him after a flyover of the highway from Kuwait City to Baghdad, it would have been “unchivalrous” for us to have continued. Apparently the sight of charred bodies hanging out of tank hatches, etc., was too much for him. Never mind that the job wasn’t done…

  15. MikeN says:

    Why premature? The objective was to get Iraq out of Kuwait. Going all the way to Baghdad would have led to the same problems we have today.

  16. joshua says:

    #15… MikeN……Actually at that time it might have been an actual success. We had different people running things back then. Including the Bush with some common sense.
    Powell has been an overblown hype since Reagans day. He only got holier than thou when Bush preferred Condi over him.

    I just read a couple article’s today that he is Obama’s top foriegn policy advisor. Wondered where Obama got that half assed view of the world.


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