Guantanamo quotes:

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American soldiers had to guard prisoners on the inside while receiving mortar and weapons fire from the outside. Guantanamo is distant from any battlefield, making it far more secure. -- John Yoo
As of September 2012, 168 out of the 602 released Guantanamo Bay detainees are suspected of returning to terrorism. So, is this a winning scenario for the United States? Of course not. -- Ben Shapiro
A decision by the Supreme Court to subject Guantanamo to judicial review would eliminate these advantages. -- John Yoo
Guantanamo Bay houses enemy combatants ranging from terrorist trainers and recruiters to bomb makers, would-be suicide bombers, and terrorist financiers. -- Chris Chocola
The Justices are currently considering a case, argued last month, which seeks to extend the writ of habeas corpus to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at Guantanamo. -- John Yoo
At Guantanamo Bay, we could create a West Berlin, a free small city within the Communist nation that could trade freely with the U.S. and elect its own officials. -- Elliott Abrams
The effort to blur the lines between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib reflects a deep misunderstanding about the different legal regimes that apply to Iraq and the war against al Qaeda. -- John Yoo
The United States is holding hundreds of suspected terrorists in prisons at Guantanamo and elsewhere. Many are locked up indefinitely. They have not been tried or even charged with any crime. -- Stephen Kinzer
Since January 2002, when the United States began detaining at Guantanamo Bay enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other fronts in the war on terror, critics have complained of human rights abuses. -- Linda Chavez
I was most impressed with the professionalism of our soldiers stationed there, and I am now more confident than ever that that the operations at Guantanamo are being conducted in a humane and necessary manner. -- Jim Ryun
If people around the world knew how well people at Guantanamo Bay are treating prisoners, they would not fall prey to the accusations that some in our Chamber are making. They are all receiving judicial review. -- Robin Hayes
The steep decline in America's image and standing after 9/11 is a direct reflection of global distaste for the instruments of American hard power: the Iraq invasion, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, Blackwater's killings of Iraqi civilians. -- Shashi Tharoor
I abhor anything that constitutes torture. Water-boarding, it's perfectly clear to me it is torture. I never supported extraordinary rendition to torture, always said that Guantanamo should be closed. There is no clash of ideals and pragmatism there. -- David Miliband
When I visited Guantanamo Bay several years ago, I met a team of psychiatrists treating the detainees. When I asked how they distinguished between, say, schizophrenia or bipolarity and a bedrock religious commitment to holy war, they couldn't answer. -- Monica Crowley
Obama and the Democrats were so critical of what Bush did, the interrogations, the secret prisons, Guantanamo and all of that, and even the war on terror. Obama won't use the word. He's made war on the war on terror. -- Charles Krauthammer
What made Guantanamo such a travesty - and what still makes it such - is that it is a system of indefinite detention whereby human beings are put in cages for years and years without ever being charged with a crime. -- Glenn Greenwald
What has happened at Guantanamo Bay... does not represent the will of the American people. I'm embarrassed about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people. -- Jimmy Carter
Obama's failure to close Guantanamo is yet another instance where the rhetoric of democratic and constitutional rights proved not useful for his international relations, relations which are always pursued in ways that continue to link and fortify securitarian power with the opening of new markets. -- Judith Butler
If anyone has it rough at Guantanamo, it is the guards. They are constantly harassed and threatened by some of these terrorists. Prisoners tell guards, we know where your families are. We know where your wife is, your children, and we are going to kill them. -- Robin Hayes
As I detail in my new book: 'Hard Measures, How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives,' there are many myths surrounding the detention of a relatively small number of top terrorists at CIA-run 'black sites' from 2002 until they were sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2006. -- Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr.
I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A. I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts. -- Jimmy Carter
Each department and institution has its own authorities and responsibilities, and they act on that basis. It is wrong to even compare such actions to what is done in Guantanamo or elsewhere by the Americans. They do not stand on a high moral platform to preach to others. -- Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
Guantanamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty. -- Thomas Friedman
Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time. -- Irene Khan
...the facility at Guantanamo Bay is necessary to national security. -- Jeff Miller
Second, the facility at Guantanamo Bay is necessary to national security. -- Jeff Miller
Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay. -- Tom Lantos
I think Guantanamo, has been synonymous with the staining of American values and American legal tradition. -- Mark Shields
If the inmates of Guantanamo want to make their nests in Uruguay, they can do it. -- Jose Mujica
It wasn't a conscious decision to actually make a movie about Guantanamo Bay. It was a device. -- Hayden Schlossberg
Obviously this prison has been controversial ever since the first detainees arrived in Guantanamo more than 14 years ago. -- Audie Cornish
President Obama has been very clear as he laid out the goal, and the objective is to close Guantanamo. -- Cliff Sloan
Closing the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is a promise President [Barack] Obama made it but has yet to fulfill. -- Audie Cornish
Guantanamo is still open, but it's unlikely that serious torture is going on at Guantanamo. There is just too much inspection. -- Noam Chomsky
I think the suffering, violence and cruelty and Guantanamo and the rest is going to go on and on in Iraq. -- Clare Short
I have been to Guantanamo. It's a model prison. Is it ideal? No. But we live in a very un-ideal world. -- Peter T. King
We're going to be really ashamed of ourselves when this whole story about Guantanamo comes out. Guantanamo is a really depraved place... -- Seymour Hersh
Guantanamo is a chief recruiting tool for al-Qaida. It has put a wedge between the United States and at least some of its allies. -- Eric Holder
It's true that I have not been able to completely close Guantanamo, but we've drastically reduced the population from 700 or so to around 60 now. -- Barack Obama
Remember when Obama was campaigning? Didn't he say he was going to close Guantanamo Bay? Didn't he say that? Apparently, he just meant for renovations. -- Jay Leno
The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people. I mean, these are terrorists for the most part. -- Dick Cheney
Yesterday I, along with a bipartisan Congressional Delegation of lawmakers, inspected the detention facilities at Guantanamo used to house individuals detained in the War on Terrorism. -- Jim Ryun
Obama was expected to restore an ethical sheen to post-9/11 foreign policy, but he has intensified drone warfare in Yemen and Pakistan, pursued whistle-blowers, and failed to close down Guantanamo. -- Pankaj Mishra
With the NDAA, his failure to close Guantanamo Bay and the ramping use of drones, President Obama looks suspiciously like President Bush, a man on a quest for American Empire. -- Justin Sane
I performed for the U.S. troops in Guantanamo Bay. And signed autographs for people who've been gone from America for so long they didn't realize that I'm not famous. -- Mike Birbiglia
I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo. -- Ann Coulter
Many of the vicious criminals held there have been caught on the battlefield fighting against American troops and shutting down Guantanamo Bay would just require the military to move them elsewhere. -- Bill Shuster
I stand on my public record as a defender of the human rights of Muslims, notably my work for Moazzam Begg and other British Muslims detained without trial in Guantanamo Bay. -- Hari Kunzru
Our actions in the Middle East over the last 15 years have already guaranteed radical Muslims quite enough ammunition to kill Americans for the next century, even if Guantanamo did not exist. -- Nick Clooney
We aren't using Guantanamo Bay anymore to take additional terrorists. That was the perfect facility to be able to use to extract information from people to keep the American people safe. -- Michele Bachmann
Anyway, a spokesman for Barack Obama says the prisoners that are released from Guantanamo will either be sent back to their home countries or enter the New York City cab driver training program. -- Jay Leno
Liberals believe in burning the American flag, urinating on crucifixes, and passing out birth control pills to 11-year-olds without telling their parents -- but God forbid an infidel touch a Quran at Guantanamo. -- Ann Coulter
The war in Iraq, the abuse of detainees, electronic eavesdropping, Guantanamo Bay - these things were all done on our behalf and they may turn out in the end to have created more terrorists. -- Jess Walter
What makes Bush different from Hitler? He commits crimes in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons. With all these crimes, they still behave like bullying claimants. They get angry once they see an independant nation. -- Ali Khamenei
I was most impressed with the professionalism of our soldiers stationed there, and I am now more confident than ever that that the operations at Guantanamo are being conducted in a humane and necessary manner." -- Jim Ryun
The military is trying very hard right now to put a better face on Guantanamo, and I think they actually have tried to rid some of the extreme versions of abuse that we have read about. -- Jane Mayer
An institution like Guantanamo in its present form cannot and must not exist in the long term. We must find different ways of dealing with prisoners. As far as I'm concerned there's no question about that. -- Angela Merkel
I do not propose that everyone in Guantanamo or its evil twin at Bagram is innocent. I just don't believe we should incarcerate people without trial and torture them or facilitate and profit from their torture. -- Nick Harkaway
And, in fact, there is a connection, the people who designed this here program and who implement it are the same people who are overseeing and helping in the interrogations of detainees in places like Guantanamo. -- Jane Mayer
We'll review President Obama's plan [on closing Guantanamo], but since it includes bringing dangerous terrorists to facilities in U.S. communities, he should know that the bipartisan will of Congress has already been expressed against that proposal. -- Audie Cornish
Keeping this facility [Guantanamo prison] open is contrary to our values. It undermines our standing in the world. It is viewed as a stain on our broader record of upholding the highest standards of rule of law. -- Audie Cornish
Guantanamo allows us to secure dangerous detainees without the risk of escape, while at the same time providing us with valuable intelligence information on how best to proceed in the war against terror and prevent future attacks. -- Jim Ryun
I abhor anything that constitutes torture. Water-boarding, its perfectly clear to me it is torture. I never supported extraordinary rendition to torture, always said that Guantanamo should be closed. There is no clash of ideals and pragmatism there. -- David Miliband
The true test of whether Mr. Obama has improved on the Bush era lies in how his administration justifies its decisions on the 241 remaining Guantanamo detainees, whose cases will now be evaluated internally and reviewed by the courts. -- Noah Feldman
Anyway, the [Barack] Obama administration took four years to say they weren't gonna do anything on George W. Bush. There were all kinds of people that wanted to prosecute him over the torture, quote, unquote, at Guantanamo Bay. -- Rush Limbaugh
Anyway, the [Barack] Obama administration took four years to say they weren't gonna do anything on George W. Bush. There were all kinds of people that wanted to prosecute him over the torture, quote, unquote, at Guantanamo Bay. -- Rush Limbaugh
I mean, the people who run Guantanamo, the military, pretty much dismiss complaints by the detainees because they say that they're all created as part of a political process to sort of fake complaints and get public support. -- Jane Mayer
If we capture any of these ISIS killers alive, they are going to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and we're going to find out everything they know, because when I'm president, unlike Barack Obama, we will keep this country safe. -- Marco Rubio
Sources say the Obama administration is in the 'final stages' of planning the closing of Guantanamo Bay. The way it's gonna work is, they're going to put a Radio Shack sign out front and let nature take its course. -- Jimmy Fallon
By the time President Obama took office, Guantanamo was viewed internationally as a symbol of a counterterrorism approach that flouted our laws and strayed from our values, undercutting the perceived legitimacy - and therefore the effectiveness - of our efforts. -- John O. Brennan
I believe that we need to set conditions to close the detention facility at Guantanamo. This includes retaining the option to transfer detainees from this facility elsewhere... It is in the U.S.'s national security interest to do so. -- Pete Visclosky
There are people who are saying that they voted twice for Mr. Obama and they are now feeling a great sense of regret, not only over Guantanamo, etc., but now perhaps the entry into a new war in West Asia. -- Vijay Prashad
The only subject fewer authentic Americans cared about than the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo was World Cup Soccer. America is an epic global battle with ruthless savages who seek our destruction, and liberals are feeling sorry for the terrorists. -- Ann Coulter
One recent menu for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo consisted of orange glazed chicken, fresh fruit crepe, steamed peas and mushrooms, and rice pilaf. Sounds like the sort of thing you'd get at Windows on the World - if it still existed. -- Ann Coulter
My legislation would cut off all funding for trials of anyone from Guantanamo in any court in the United States of America. This bill would help stop the misguided plan to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists on trial in Downtown Manhattan. -- Peter T. King
My legislation would cut off all funding for trials of anyone from Guantanamo in any court in the United States of America. This bill would help stop the misguided plan to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists on trial in Downtown Manhattan. -- Peter T. King
The best power of all is to be free, but Obama is not a free person. He is a prisoner of a military system. He talked about closing Guantanamo and ending the war in Iraq. Now he's taken on another war. What's happening? -- Adolfo Perez Esquivel
Prisoners, according to the law, who are non-U.S. citizens and are detained outside the U.S. - including in Guantanamo Bay - are denied 'habeas corpus.' They are also denied the right to claim the Geneva Conventions confer certain rights on them. -- Noah Feldman
Her round, mascara-streaked face looked back at him out of the rear window. He forced a grin and a wave before lighting another cigarette, and reflecting that Lucy's idea of sympathty compared unfavourably with some of the interrogation techniques they had used at Guantanamo. -- J. K. Rowling
Here's the bigger problem with all this, we're not interrogating anybody right now. Guantanamo's being emptied by this president. We should be putting people into Guantanamo, not emptying it out, and we shouldn't be releasing these killers who are rejoining the battlefield against the United States. -- Marco Rubio
Long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp. President Obama fully embraced indefinite detention - the defining injustice of Guantanamo - as his own policy. -- Glenn Greenwald
As an infantry officer who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, I have led men in combat and trained them on tactics and strategy. The mission of the infantry is to 'close with, and destroy, the enemy.' Our job, in a direct way, is to fight and win wars. -- Pete Hegseth
The time has come for President Obama to formally rescind his order to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and end his irresponsible allegations of injustices at the facility, which operates in a framework that respects the rule of law, keeps terrorists off American soil, and bolsters our national security. -- Jason Chaffetz
Let me say this: I believe closing Guantanamo is in our Nation's national security interest. Guantanamo is used not only by al-Qaida, but also by other nations, governments, and individuals - people good and bad - as a symbol of America's abuse of Muslims, and it is fanning the flames of anti-Americanism around the world. -- Dianne Feinstein
We will never win this war until we understand the effect that Guantanamo Bay has had on the overall war effort. And we'll never get the support of the American people if we can't prove to them that these folks that we're dealing with are not common criminals. We're going to keep them - keep you safe from them. -- Lindsey Graham

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