Moment of Zen #3 ( for May 5, 2009 )

Obama on Guantánamo

Barack Obama – new elected U.S.-president – has to stand a huge wave of criticism these days. One of the most powerful and convincing arguments in his presidential campaign concerned Guantánamo Bay Cuba. He promised the American public – and the political world – to close this detention-center and to enable every inhabitant a fair civil suit right after being elected president.
But hardly after a hundred days in office, Obama suddenly changed his mind. He is going to close Guantánamo. But there will not be civil processes. Instead of that, every effected will be court-martialled without having the same spread of fairness and evidence-trial as in a normal court of justice. The brutal police-questioning-procedure named “water-boarding”, which simulates a realistic drowning-situation, will not be prosecuted criminally. If these inhabitants would be treated like promised, in most cases the civil courts would acquit them probably.
So, what about keeping these promises he gave?
Don’t get me wrong - this decision does not turn him out as a bad president or a brutal leader. But it can do kind of a huge crack to the “new-and-better-world-after-Bush-perception” a lot of – not solely only American – people have built up since Obama entered the political stage.

See link: http://www.n-tv.de/1147921.html
and: http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/video482210.html