Various internet news sources are twittering in speculation that President Elect Barack Obama's first executive order will involve the business of shuttering the infamous and controversial Guantanamo Bay U.S. military detention camp in Cuba. Though it was widely known as a point of interception for Haitian refugees on the high seas in the early 1990s, it has gained a nasty reputation for being a torture camp for suspected foreign terrorists and enemies of the state since 2002's War On Terror. The methods utilized at Guantanamo Bay have been lambasted most intensely over the past six years, culminating in widespread protests and demonstrations by various human rights organizations. The closing of such a facility would definitely be a cause for celebration...if their plans are not simply to transplant the heinous operation elsewhere, that is. Although there are equally questionable tactics utilized at various other prison camps across the globe such as Abu Ghraib...
...Guantanamo Bay, also known as "Gitmo," has earned quite the reputation most notably in the case of the Guantanamo Five, making it the shining symbol of POW inhumanity and the target of many humane society NGOs and advocacy groups.
It is noted by various news sources and advocacy groups that the closing of Guantanamo Bay, if speculation is correct, would not happen overnight. But if the murmuring is true, then it wouldn't be too far fetched to speculate that his new administration has plans to cook up an elixir for the long-standing bad blood between Cuba and the U.S. Only time will tell. All that I can say now is that this will definitely be quite the four-year journey for U.S. citizens and the international community alike.
More info here and here.
For more information on the history of Guantanamo Bay...read a f*ckin' book. Or, take the American shortcut:
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