GUANTANAMO/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “US President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union touched on a number of international issues, including North Korea and the battle to defeat ISIS, but he didn’t offer any specifics and barely mentioned Russia or China… Here’s what he did include:
Guantanamo
Trump signed a new executive order Tuesday to keep open the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and opened the door to sending new prisoners there.
The decision is a major reversal of his predecessor President Barack Obama’s policy. Obama, failed to close the controversial high-security detention facility in his eight years in office despite campaign pledges to do so.
‘Today I’m keeping another promise. I just signed an order directing Secretary Mattis… to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay,’ Trump said in his speech Tuesday.
‘I am also asking the Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and al-Qa’ida, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists — wherever we chase them down.’
‘Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are evil. When possible, we annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them. But we must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are.’ “
-Euan McKirdy, “What Trump said about ISIS, Iran and North Korea in his State of the Union speech,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, Jan. 31, 2018 03:51am