One of the first promises made by President Obama when he first came to power back in 2008 was to close the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention centre. Four years later it is still operational.
The former chief prosecutor of the Gitmo military commissions, Colonel Morris Davis, who was thrilled when Obama took office, told RT of his huge disappointment in the US president. “Candidate Obama said all the right things about justice and American values and closing Guantanamo and doing away with military commissions and applauding the rule of law,” he told RT’s Gayane Chichakyan. ”And then once he gets in office…. If he did just embrace the Bush’s policies, he kissed him on the lips and ran with them. And he advanced them further than President Bush ever did.”“Like killing an American with a drone strike in Yemen. Which is just astounding that an American president can make the unilateral decision that the surveillance agency, the CIA, would go to another country and launch an offensive military operation, fire missile and killing an American and bystanders .I am not aware of any legal justification for that, I think it is called murder to kill another human being deliberately without legal justification,” he stated.Commenting to RT on Guantanamo, which is still open despite US president’s pledge to shut it, Colonel Davis said Obama might have learnt the things he did not know before or he faced a bigger obstacle than he anticipated. “The slogan “Close Guantanamo” sounds fairly simple. Actually following through and doing it is a much more difficult process,” he said. “Guantanamo is still open, the military commissions have resumed and in my view the president just didn’t have the balls to follow through with doing the right thing.”Davis also gave his views on a drone weapon system which is currently in operation at the US military. While saying he sees nothing wrong with the drones themselves, there is much more what concerns him. “Drones are being used to avoid compliance with the law and giving people due process and their day in court and that’s a sad chapter in America’s history if that is what we are doing,” he said. “Our strength for 200 years was the law we are now turning out back at. There is a choice between kill and capture and the administration is choosing kill because it’s the easy rout. And it’s a sad commentary on America in 2011".
“And another black spot on American reputation”.