Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I will now piss in your ear and call it rain...
BRUSSELS -- Washington aims to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre before next year's November US presidential election, US Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.
"We share the view that the closing of the Guantanamo facility would be a positive thing," Holder said after an exchange of views with the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee. "There is no question that there is strong opposition," he said. But there was "equal determination" by both President Barack Obama and himself to shut the centre down before the November 2012 polls.
Almost as determined as we were in 2010...and 2009...and 2008...and 2007
"We will be pressing for closure between now and then," he said. "It is the determination of this adnministration to close Guantanamo and to do it as quickly as possible, recognising that we will face much internal pressure."
And you have Barry's and my word on that...and we all know what that's worth.
Earlier this month, the EU's home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem slammed Washington's failure to close the detention centre as "a shame. We are very displeased, this is the opinion of the European Union and of the whole of Europe, of all the member states, expressed repeatedly in our contacts with the Americans," she said after launching new EU anti-terror measures two days before the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. "It is a shame that it is still open and that people have not been put on trial," she added. "We continue to repeat to our American friends that it must be closed."
Oooh, the EU is displeased... |