Too late for Obama to close Guantanamo prison: Analyst

A letter by Democratic lawmakers urging outgoing President Barack Obama to close the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is "too little too late,” says an analyst in New York.

Joe Lauria, an author and independent journalist made the remarks on Thursday, while discussing a letter by Democratic lawmakers to Obama, where they called for the closure of the controversial detention facility.

Obama has failed to keep his promise during the 2008 presidential election campaign to close the prison, citing its damage to the US reputation abroad, but has set free some of the inmates and relocated some others.

On the 15th anniversary of the opening of the prison, the 40 Democratic signatories from the Congressional Progressive Caucus said in the letter that they were alarmed by “torture’s resurgence” under the incoming presidency of Donald Trump.

While campaigning for the 2016 presidential election, Trump, a New York billionaire and former reality TV start, embraced Guantánamo and promised to bring back water-boarding, one of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques used on suspects of the US alleged war on terror after the 9/11 attacks.

Describing the letter as “too little too late,” Lauria said the lawmakers had to wrote the letter eight years ago not eight days before the end of Obama’s tenure.

“So, suddenly they discovered that Guantanamo needs to be closed, it is really rich that they suddenly have a problem with that because they think that somehow Trump will make it worse,” he added.

Lauria referred to Trump’s pledges of reinstating torture and said there is indeed a real chance that the situation at Gitmo could turn for the worse under Trump.

However, he argued that Democrats had a lot more to worry about during Obama’s eight years in the White House and yet did not take any actions.

“Why not tell Obama earlier to end drone warfare, mass surveillance, to undo his National Defense Authorization Act … and the Pentagon program giving weapons to local police departments,” he asked. “There is many many things that Trump will inherit from Obama, that Obama created, that these Democrats are not calling for an end to.”