The Future of Guantanamo Bay

With the election done, and Barack Obama the victor, plans for the next presidency have begun. Seeing as many of us have recently written papers pondering the morality of the prison known as "Gitmo", it is interesting to see how our next president plans to deal with it. While he has been urged by the American Civil Liberties Union to do away with the prison the first day he gets into office, Obama seems to have a more reasonable approach. Instead of just getting rid of it, he has said that his adminitration and himself will close it "as quickly as we can do prudently." While ideally he would like to get rid of it immediately, the reality is that you can't simply close a facility housing 255 known terrorists. Obama has expressed the possibility of trying some of the inmates in federal courts, not the military courts that president Bush had used to try several leading terrorists. A fear of corruption and political interferance with these courts has led to this idea.
Regardless of the means of its closure, it is clear that Obama and his administration plan on closing it, believing its use unneccesary and unconstitutional. While it is often hard to see the good that "Gitmo" has brought the United States, it is easy to notice the stain that it has left on the way that we are seen as a nation. While the Constitution pledges a fair and speedy trial to all, and the banning of "cruel and unusual punishments", Guantanamo bay openly disregards it and claims that as a base in Cuba, it is not under the rule of the Constitution. As in many of the papers that we have written in our class, Obama and his administration have decided that the workings of Guantanamo Bay are immoral and an abuse of power.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/10/obama.transition.guantanamo/index.html