In a few hours, President Obama will no longer be occupying the White House, but he’s decided to do one more thing to royally screw us over. He decided to let four more detainees at Guantanamo Bay go. The president couldn’t close down Gitmo, a point of frustration that he took out on members of Congress. As a result, he did what he could do on his own: empty it. Oh, and you wouldn’t be shocked if I were to tell you that some of these detainees that we released returned to their terrorist organizations, with one of them becoming al-Qaeda’s leader in Yemen. Yeah, that all happened. And some were already pegged as “high risk,” but remember—we have to close this detention facility in order for the terrorists to stop attacking us (or something).
President-elect Donald Trump will be left to deal with the remaining 41 inmates (via CNN):
The Pentagon announced Thursday that four more inmates were transferred out of the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, marking the final such transfer under President Barack Obama and leaving the facility's population at 41.Thursday's transfer concludes the Obama administration's final push to empty the facility as much as possible prior to Friday's inauguration, with 19 inmates being transferred since Election Day. One of the inmates is going to Saudi Arabia and the other three are being taken in by the United Arab Emirates.
There were 242 detainees at Guantanamo when Obama came into office in January 2009 and he had pledged to close the controversial center within one year in an executive order he signed shortly after his own inauguration. But in recent days, administration officials have acknowledged that this goal was out of reach.
Yes, an unfortunate decision coming from the soon-to-be ex-president, but it’s still a good day. Why? We can all say it together: Goodbye, Obama.