WASHINGTON, May 23 (RIA Novosti) - US President Barack Obama renewed his commitment to closing the US military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba during a wide-ranging speech on US counterterrorism policy Thursday, calling on Congress to lift restrictions on transferring detainees at Guantanamo and defending the controversial use of drone strikes overseas as necessary and legal, but announcing new restraints on targeted killings.
“Gitmo has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law. Our allies won’t cooperate with us if they think a terrorist will end up at Gitmo,” Obama said during the speech at the National Defense University in Washington.
“There is no justification beyond politics for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should never have been opened,” he added.
There are logistical challenges to be addressed, he said, including the thorny issue of how best to try terror suspects when much of the evidence against them has been compromised or is inadmissible in a court of law. But such challenges must be met, he said.
“Imagine a future – ten years from now, or twenty years from now – when the United States of America is still holding people who have been charged with no crime on a piece of land that is not a part of our country. Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are holding a hunger strike. Is that who we are?” Obama asked, adding, “Our sense of justice is stronger than that.”
The United States has prosecuted scores of terrorists, and in the future, “It is in a court of law that we will try Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is accused of bombing the Boston Marathon,” he said.
The United States is “at a crossroads” in the fight against terrorism, Obama said, with the al-Qaida network significantly weakened, but with new threats emerging from extremists and radicalized groups in this country and around the world. His remarks sought to shift US antiterrorism policy away from the concept of a global war on terror, and more toward targeted efforts to dismantle terror networks.
In fighting the war on terror, Obama said, the United States must be careful not to be drawn into other wars by looking at every group that calls itself al-Qaida as a credible US threat.
“Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands,” he said.
“In many cases, this will involve partnerships with other countries… Much of our best counterterrorism cooperation results in the gathering and sharing of intelligence; the arrest and prosecution of terrorists,” he said.
Obama also announced that he would lift the moratorium on transferring detainees back to their home country of Yemen.
Much of the speech focused on the controversial use of drone strikes targeting suspected terrorists, a practice which has come under intense criticism both inside the United States and overseas. Civilian deaths have angered many of the countries where the United States is struggling to combat extremism, but Obama said the drone strikes have saved lives in a manner that is less deadly than sending in troops.
“It is a hard fact that US strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in all wars… For me, and those in my chain of command, these deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred through conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Obama said.
“To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties – not just in our cities at home and facilities abroad, but also in the very places… where terrorists seek a foothold,” he added.
Obama’s counterterrorism speech came just a day after his administration acknowledged for the first time that four US citizens had been killed in overseas drone strikes since 2009, including al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was targeted in 2011 in Yemen, and three others who were not targeted by the United States.
"When a US citizen goes abroad to wage war against America -- and is actively plotting to kill U.S. citizens; and when neither the United States, nor our partners are in a position to capture him before he carries out a plot -- his citizenship should no more serve as a shield than a sniper shooting down on an innocent crowd should be protected from a SWAT team," Obama said.
Before the speech, Obama signed new presidential guidelines for the use of armed drones, including not carrying out strikes when those targeted can be captured, relying on drones only when the target poses an imminent threat, and trying to protect against civilian deaths.
Obama also called for transferring control of the use of armed drones overseas to the US military from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which has carried out hundreds of drone missions in Pakistan and Yemen, killing an estimated 3,000 militants and civilians.
The speech itself was interrupted several times by a woman, identified in media reports as the head of an antiwar group known as Code Pink, shouting about the use of drones and the detainees at Guantanamo. Visibly annoyed, Obama said he was nonetheless willing to cut the woman “some slack” because such tough issues are “worth being passionate about.”
