I'm sorry if this has already been posted. I looked but didn't find anything.
Obama backs Bush stance on Bagram prisoners
3 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says U.S. detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights, the same position the Bush administration took.
In a two-sentence court filing Friday, the Justice Department says it stands by its previous argument that detainees at Bagram Airfield cannot challenge their detention in U.S. courts.
The Supreme Court has ruled that detainees at the Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba have that right, but the court never said whether it extends to detainees being held in Afghanistan.
After Obama took office, a federal judge in Washington gave the new administration a month to decide whether it wanted to stand by Bush's legal argument. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd says the filing speaks for itself.
http://www.google.com/...
This is very disturbing news, obviously.
In a two-sentence filing, justice department lawyers said the new administration had decided not to change the government's position.
"Having considered the matter, the government adheres to its previously articulated position," said acting assistant Attorney General Michael Hertz in papers filed at the court.
The US justice department argues that Bagram differs from Guantanamo Bay because it is in an overseas war zone and prisoners there are being held as part of ongoing military action.
This is outrageous. Apparently, the morality of denying habeus to these people is not even a consideration. Instead we get legalistic hairsplitting. Didn't the SCOTUS already rule against this idea that the U.S. government can deny detainees the Great Writ? How does the fact that Bagram is located in a war zone change make things any different?
The closing of Gitmo, in light of this DOJ decision, seems little more than a PR stunt. You can't really claim the moral high ground for closing Gitmo if you're simultaneously taking the low ground with respect to Bagram. Instead of a repudiation of Bush-era wickedness, this is a cynical, opportunistic attempt to make it more palatable. Obama inveighed against Gitmo during the campaign, and moved to close it soon after taking office, but with this decision he has fallen prey to the same Bush-league logic that made Gitmo possible in the first place: bad guys have no rights.
The Muslim world will see this for what it is: hypocrisy. Fanatical Islamists like bin Laden will use this evidence that, despite all the rhetoric, Obama is just more of the same--another Christian Crusader trying to destroy Islam. And some who were on the fence will be convinced by this and join the jihadists.
Once again, the terrorists win. Somewhere in Pakistan, bin Laden is laughing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...