Mr. Obama: Close Down This Camp!

President Raoul Castro, brother of the revolutionary hero of Cuba, is hosting the Current Occupant in Havana. On the agenda of issues to be discussed most certainly has to be closing the naval brig and military base at Guantanamo Bay. Under duress Cuba 'leased' the land for a token payment of $1 a year for over a century. The installation's original use as a coaling station for a boiler-driven navy is long past; now, it has become a high security warehouse for terrorists and alleged terrorists swept from the battlefields of the Mideast. War hawks in Congress have made it difficult for the Current Occupant to keep his promise to end the occupation of Guantanamo by prohibiting him from bringing the remaining 91 or so detainees to the mainland. US Person, even though a "far-left radical", believes that because the national executive is in charge of war-making under the Constitution, the federal courts would uphold an executive order to house the Guantanamo inmates in a federal penitentiary like Leavenworth, KS or Florence, CO in defiance of the Congressional ban. If Lincoln could suspend habeas corpus during war time certainly the current president can move prisoners of war between federal detention facilities. What is lacking is the political will to change two shameful policies that are relics of the Cold War. More importantly, these policies do not work. Mr. Obama, you must end the economic embargo of Cuba and return Guantanamo to it rightful owners, the Cuban people, if your visit is not to amount to a mere pose in the long view of history.