Say Anything Blog

The carrot being offered is $200 million Palau if they take 17 of the Gitmo detainees.  The stick is possible implications for a mutual defense and cooperation treaty with the tiny island republic that’s up to be reviewed this year.

So basically, Obama is telling these folks “do it or else.”  Which isn’t surprising given the tough political spot Obama is in with the Gitmo detainees.  His far-left political base wants the detention facility closed now, but Americans don’t want the detainees in the country.  He’s between a rock and a hard place, and if he has to bully some Pacific islanders to get out of it, that’s how it’s going to be.

The Obama administration is nearing agreement with the remote South Pacific island nation of Palau to resettle a group of Chinese Muslims now held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, The Associated Press has learned.

As they attempt to fulfill President Barack Obama’s order to close the Guantanamo facility by early next year, administration officials are looking to Palau to accept some or all of the 17 Uighur detainees due to fierce congressional opposition to releasing them on U.S. soil, officials said. …

Asked Tuesday about discussions with Palau on the Uighurs, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly declined to comment beyond saying the United States is “working closely with our friends and allies regarding resettlement” of detainees at Guantanamo. He said the department would not comment on talks with individual countries.

Two of the officials said the United States was prepared to give Palau up to $200 million in development, budget support and other assistance in return for accepting the Uighurs and as part of a mutual defense and cooperation treaty that is due to be renegotiated this year.

I’m wondering why detention in Palau is any different than detention at Guantanamo Bay?  What have we accomplished by “closing Guantanamo down” if by closing it we simply move the detainees from one tropical paradise to another?  This seems to be an “out of sight out of mind” solution.  If the Gitmo detainees are in the middle of the Pacific, as opposed to not so far off the coast of Florida in Cuba, I guess Obama is hoping the public will forget about them.  And he can then claim that he “closed down Gitmo” just like he promised during his campaign.

Of course, not much will have changed.  The detainees will still be detained.  Just not at Guantanamo Bay.  But for Obama, it’s the politics of the issue that matters more than anything else.  If he can appear to have done something without really having done anything then he wins.