{"id":15336,"date":"2013-01-03T15:05:16","date_gmt":"2013-01-03T22:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=15336"},"modified":"2013-01-03T15:05:16","modified_gmt":"2013-01-03T22:05:16","slug":"us-human-rights-crimes-against-gitmo-detainees-to-egregious-for-obama-to-risk-exposing-them-through-closure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=15336","title":{"rendered":"US Human Rights Crimes against GITMO detainees to egregious for Obama to risk exposing them through closure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>US: Defense Bill Signing Backtracks on Guantanamo<\/strong><br \/>\n3 January, 2013 &#8211; Human Rights Watch<\/p>\n<p>(Washington, DC) \u2013 US President Barack Obama\u2019s refusal to veto a defense spending bill restricting detainee transfers from Guantanamo undercuts his pledge to close the prison, Human Rights Watch said today. On January 2, 2013, Obama signed the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), even though his advisers had said they would recommend a veto if it contained detainee transfer restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe administration blames Congress for making it harder to close Guantanamo, yet for a second year President Obama has signed damaging congressional restrictions into law,\u201d said Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel and advocate at Human Rights Watch. \u201cThe burden is on Obama to show he is serious about closing the prison.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a statement Obama made along with the authorization act, he criticized Congress for renewing the restrictions he said were intended to \u201cforeclose\u201d his ability to shut down Guantanamo.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI continue to believe that operating the facility weakens our national security by wasting resources, damaging our relationships with key allies, and strengthening our enemies,\u201d he wrote. However, he claimed the need to sign the legislation, saying the demand for funding was \u201ctoo great to ignore.\u201d Obama issued a similar statement when signing the NDAA the previous year.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the NDAA authorizes funding for most Defense Department operations, but it is not essential for the US armed forces to function, Human Rights Watch said. It does not actually fund the Defense Department, but authorizes the allocation of appropriated funds. If Obama had vetoed the 2013 authorization act, last year\u2019s NDAA authorization would still have been in effect. Four of five presidents preceding Obama vetoed a defense authorization act.   <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2013\/01\/03\/us-defense-bill-signing-backtracks-guantanamo\" target=\"_blank\">&#8230;more<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D15336&amp;text=US+Human+Rights+Crimes+against+GITMO+detainees+to+egregious+for+Obama+to+risk+exposing+them+through+closure&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US: Defense Bill Signing Backtracks on Guantanamo 3 January, 2013 &#8211; Human Rights Watch (Washington, DC) \u2013 US President Barack Obama\u2019s refusal to veto a defense spending bill restricting detainee transfers from Guantanamo undercuts his pledge to close the prison, Human Rights Watch said today. On January 2, 2013, Obama signed the 2013 National Defense <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=15336#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[487],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15336"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15337,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15336\/revisions\/15337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}