Posted by
Always To The Right on Saturday, February 21, 2009 1:43:09 PM
As the Who said, “Meet the new boss — same as the old boss“:
Detainees being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan cannot use US courts to challenge their detention, the US says.
The justice department ruled that some 600 so-called enemy combatants at Bagram have no constitutional rights.
Most have been arrested in Afghanistan on suspicion of waging a terrorist war against the US.
The ruling has disappointed human rights lawyers who had hoped the
Obama administration would take a different line to that of George W
Bush.
Prof Barbara Olshansky, the lead counsel in a legal challenge on
behalf of four Bagram detainees, told the BBC the justice department’s
decision not to reform the rules was both surprising and “enormously
disappointing”.
The exact quote from the Barack Obama-era Department of Justice? “Having considered the matter, the government adheres to its previously articulated position.”
The DoJ and the DoD consider Bagram detainees “unlawful combatants”
without any rights to access the US court system and with no recourse
for release.
Just as it did in the George Bush administration. Remember how the
Left considered Bush a war criminal for taking this exact position?
I’d like to see how they square the circle with Obama now. A few like
Glenn Greenwald will rip Obama on principle, but the rest will suddenly
discover the reasonableness of detaining terrorists and treating them
not like burglars but like enemy combatants who have themselves
violated Geneva Conventions through their terrorism.
Just as we did in the George Bush administration.
All statements from Barack Obama come with expiration dates. That’s
something that the HopeandChangizoids have begun to learn just a month
after the dawning of the Age of Obama. A lot of them owe Bush — and us
— apologies.