Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp News

The Guantanamo Public Memory Project aims to remind people of the facility's century-long place in US politics - and why it's so hard to close.

In a speech outlining U.S. counterterrorism efforts, President Obama cautioned against using drone strikes as a cure-all for terrorism and said he is insisting on strong oversight of all lethal action, including tighter standards for unmanned air strikes.

President Obama's course corrections on his signature drone policy and Guantanamo Bay detainees are important.

Gird your loins, America. President Obama intends to empty out Guantanamo Bay and send scores of suspected Muslim terror operatives back to their jihadist-coddling native countries.

In his " drone speech " Thursday, President Barack Obama referred to the oft-cited argument that the U.S. should close the GuantA namo Bay terror detention facility because it stirs anti-American opinion: "GTMO has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law," he said.

In his national security speech Thursday, President Obama discussed drone warfare and the Guantanamo detention camp.

The Navy brig here is once again being mentioned as a possible site to hold and put terror detainees on trial.

President Obama delivered his highly-anticipated, major, hour-long speech on his administration's counterterrorism policies yesterday, and as usual, he's taking it from all sides.

The text in this diary is from an email I received from avaaz.org. It's yet another perspective, but an important one, as it's from outside the US.

ISLAMABAD: President Barack Obama's speech on the use of drones and the fate of Guantanamo prisoners was largely welcomed Friday in two key countries affected by the policies Pakistan and Yemen.

When President Obama delivered a major speech on America's drone program and the ongoing existence of the Guantanamo prison, the majority of those most affected by the latter - the prisoners themselves - were, ironically, unable to hear his speech.

US President Barack Obama has lifted a moratorium on the transfer of Yemeni prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay as part of a renewed push to close the detention camp.

So why should anyone think closure is any more likely now than it was five years ago? The idea of shuttering the facility, a legacy of the early days of the war on terror, has consistently run into problems stemming from a lack of good alternatives, resistance to conducting terror trials in the U.S. and a wall of Republican opposition.

President Obama is once again calling for the prison at Guantanamo Bay to be shut down, even though new polls suggest most Americans want it to stay open.

When he talked about the need to shut down Guantanamo, he said: "Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are holding a hunger strike.

When Barack Obama ran for president of the United States in 2008, his message of hope and change gave us, the citizens of lesser republics, hope that he would close Guantanamo and shut down programs where extrajudicial killing or bribing foreign heads of state with American taxpayer dollars had become standard practice.

Early on, the president promised to shutter the prison in a year's time. Then a plan came late and Democratic allies were abandoned.

Flanked by several GOP colleagues who echoed his remarks, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., blasted the president's declaration that the war on terror "must end" as premature and foolhardy, saying that a desire to bring the war "to a compete closure contradicts the reality of the facts on the ground," and arguing that "al Qaeda will be with us for a long ... (more)

Warning of the danger of keeping America on a "perpetual wartime footing," President Obama called for an end to the war on terror, explaining, "Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue, but this war, like all wars, must end - that's what history advises; that's what our democracy demands." Flanked by several GOP ... (more)

14, 1973 file photo, released prisoner of war John McCain is greeted by President Richard Nixon, left, in Washington.