President announces Guantanamo will close on Friday.....

April 1, 2013

In a surprise move that is sending shock waves around the capitol President Obama stepped out onto the balcony of the white house and announced he will close the controversial detention center at Guantanamo Bay,Cuba on Friday, April 6, of 2013-. With his vice president and secretary of defense standing by his side, a cheerful Obama announced that he had been planning this day for “several years now-actually for a little more than six years truth be told. I was just having trouble working out some of the little details.” When questioned by members of the press as to which details were the most difficult, the president acknowledged that it was hard “really hard” to find the right mode of transportation to take all of the men off the island at one time. “you see- these men have been together for a long time and they have become friends- we didn’t want to just pull them off one by one and have the other men wondering where their friends went. I thought it important that each man be present while the others are set free- except of course for those men who we believe were involved in the attacks on the United States in September 2001.” 

Obama acknowledged that he spent literally “years working out the details” of getting all of the men off the island at one time and having them travel with each other as they each made their way to their homes- or in some cases their new homes "when a few months ago while I was watching the news about a distressed cruise ship in the Caribbean- a ship that lost its electricity and its water-it hit me that a cruise ship was the perfect mode of transportation for the men.” The president, lightly laughing, quickly followed up that announcement by saying “of course we don’t want a disabled ship. The men have complained that we provided tainted water to them at Guantanamo and we want to make sure they are on a ship with fresh water- plenty of fresh water. And good food too... like lemon chicken and rice pilaf.” 

The president then turned to secretary of defense Hagel to outline the plans for moving the men on Friday. According to Hagel “we first contacted some of the cruise lines to see if they had a ship that we could use- a working ship. But all of the ships were being readied to head to Alaska for the summer season so we had to come up with another plan. I was sitting in my new office late one night with a few of my interns discussing the Palestinian situation when one of them turned to me and practically yelled “why don’t we use the USS Abraham Lincoln?” I didn’t know what he was referring to and I told him it wouldn’t send the right message to send the Lincoln to the middle east because well that was the ship George W. Bush used to announce mission accomplished.” “My intern looked embarrassed as he acknowledged that he really wasn’t listening to what I was talking about but was instead thinking about Guantanamo- and well honestly I just smiled a big smile- what better ship could we use- not only were we finally accomplishing the very first mission the president established when he took office all those many years ago but it is a ship named after the very president that freed our slaves. Now our slaves ----I mean the brown men detained at Guantanamo- would be sailing home on the ship named after our great president who freed the black men so many years ago. It just felt right and I called the president immediately and told him I had a plan.”

Vice President Biden then stepped up to the mike and gently nudged secretary Hagel away with a weak smile on his face turned to the press and said “Chuck, I’ll take it from here.” Acknowledging that members of the press were probably surprised by today’s announcement, the Vice President said that a full itinerary of the men’s trip would be posted on the white house blog in the travel section later in the day but provided these basic details:

First, the men were told of the great news this morning and we hope to have them eating breakfast again today and helping them gain their weight back, for those that suffered internal damage-including brain damage, from not eating for almost two months we are providing vitamins- very strong vitamins.” “We are also going to start providing big macs and large sodas twice a day in the afternoon and we are bringing in pizza’s and fries for dinner- you know the kind of food that has made American’s so obese…we hope by Friday the men will be getting fat and happy. Of course that makes fitting the men for cruise wear a little difficult. We thought it would be unsightly for the men to be cruising in their orange jumpsuits so we are getting specially made jumpsuits in happy spring like colors- and jumpsuits with expandable waists so as the men eat all of the fast food we can give them they will still be comfortable.

The ship will set sail at sunset on Friday and from Guantanamo the ship will sail to the ports closest to each man’s home town-dropping them off while their friends on board wave their goodbyes. We will give each man a clean shirt and a pair of pants and $25- I know that doesn’t sound like much money but really in the countries they come from you can buy a lot for $25. We expect the trip to take about six months because – well frankly we can’t send all of the men to their home countries because we have called them terrorists and made people frightened of them and it has kind of made it hard for some of them to go to their own home countries ---so we will have to sit around at a few ports and see if we can’t talk some of those countries into accepting a few men. But we are American’s we know how to bargain and I feel confident that we can find a home for each man even if it means trading some arms and weapons in exchange for taking the men.”

“The last stop will be New York City-when we pull into the harbor and pass the statue of liberty we will only have twenty or so men with us- those men will be brought to the federal court and charged with real crimes. Of course, let’s be honest- we don’t know if those charges can stick after more than 11 years of being held without charge and tortured but that is our plan in a nutshell. Go to our website and read the details of this amazing end to Guantanamo and join us as we proudly say mission finally accomplished.”

As the three men stepped back into the doors of the White House President Obama turned to the reporters and lifted up both thumbs and proudly announced “yes we can.”