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(141,617 posts)Pale Blue Dot
(16,834 posts)Percentage of prisoners released would be a more informative number.
GeorgeGist
(25,570 posts)figure it out and get back to us.
Pale Blue Dot
(16,834 posts)Total number of detainees ever incarcerated at Guantánamo: 779
Detainees released under President Bush: over 500.
Detainees at start of Obama Presidency: 242.
Number of 242 detainees approved for release: 126.4
Detainees transferred, repatriated or resettled under Obama: 72.
Detainees transferred to US for prosecution: 1.6
Detainees who died in custody since January 2009: 4
Detainees currently held at Guantánamo: 166.
Remaining detainees approved for release: 86.
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/USLS-Fact-Sheet-Gitmo-Numbers.pdf
Here's why this OP is very misleading:
Bush released 64% of the prisoners who were at Gitmo at the time of his presidency.
If Obama could, he would have released 67% of the remaining prisoners.
1. The remaining prisoners are, presumably, the worst of the worst.
2. According to the Washington Post:
For the 86 prisoners, it's a plight almost Kafkaesque in its cruel absurdity: though the United States believes they should be released from their concrete cells at Guantanamo Bay, they have stayed in prison, often for years, not because of any crime they committed or immediate threat they pose, but because of diplomatic and political hurdles out of their control.
For the Obama administration, it's a maze with no obvious exits: it doesn't want to keep these prisoners locked up in Gitmo, which is politically and diplomatically costly, not to mention antithetical to Obama's stated desire to close the prison, but Congress has forbidden the prisoners from being transferred to U.S. soil. Though the administration had searched for foreign countries to which the detainees could be released, it appears to have since given up, having closed the office responsible for finding those countries.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/04/25/kafka-at-gitmo-why-86-prisoners-are-cleared-for-release-but-might-never-get-it/
I am no fan of Obama (seriously, although I post rarely here now, a search of my posts will confirm this.) But posts like this, comparing Obama to Bush with no context, are, I feel, damaging to the liberal and progressive causes that the President is avoiding.
Pale Blue Dot
(16,834 posts)It was still not useful, for the same reasons.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)American back this time.