Originally Posted By planodisney {WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, siding with the Bush White House, contended Friday that detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights. In a two-sentence court filing, the Justice Department said it agreed that detainees at Bagram Airfield cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention. The filing shocked human rights attorneys. "The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out as we'd hoped," said Tina Monshipour Foster, a human rights attorney representing a detainee at the Bagram Airfield. "We all expected better." The Supreme Court last summer gave al-Qaida and Taliban suspects held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their detention. With about 600 detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and thousands more held in Iraq, courts are grappling with whether they, too, can sue to be released. Three months after the Supreme Court's ruling on Guantanamo Bay, four Afghan citizens being detained at Bagram tried to challenge their detentions in U.S. District Court in Washington. Court filings alleged that the U.S. military had held them without charges, repeatedly interrogating them without any means to contact an attorney. Their petition was filed by relatives on their behalf since they had no way of getting access to the legal system. The military has determined that all the detainees at Bagram are "enemy combatants." The Bush administration said in a response to the petition last year that the enemy combatant status of the Bagram detainees is reviewed every six months, taking into consideration classified intelligence and testimony from those involved in their capture and interrogation. After Barack 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. "They've now embraced the Bush policy that you can create prisons outside the law," said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who has represented several detainees. The Justice Department argues that Bagram is different from Guantanamo Bay because it is in an overseas war zone and the prisoners there are being held as part of a military action. The government argues that releasing enemy combatants into the Afghan war zone, or even diverting U.S. personnel there to consider their legal cases, could threaten security. The government also said if the Bagram detainees got access to the courts, it would allow all foreigners captured by the United States in conflicts worldwide to do the same. It's not the first time that the Obama administration has used a Bush administration legal argument after promising to review it. Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced a review of every court case in which the Bush administration invoked the state secrets privilege, a separate legal tool it used to have lawsuits thrown out rather than reveal secrets. The same day, however, Justice Department attorney Douglas Letter cited that privilege in asking an appeals court to uphold dismissal of a suit accusing a Boeing Co. subsidiary of illegally helping the CIA fly suspected terrorists to allied foreign nations that tortured them. Letter said that Obama officials approved his argument.} Somehow i don't think we will see the demonization of Obama by the liberal media and the liberal elite like we did for bush on issues like this. No calls for IMPEACHMENT for human rights violations or Geneva Convention violations. Don't you guys ever get embarrassed by the hypocracy that saturates the democratic party? Or do you actually not even notice?
Originally Posted By Mr X Here's a better question, where's the conservative outcry? This was a top story yesterday on CNN.com and, more surprisingly, the Huffington Post. So much for claiming they're in the Presidents' pocket, eh? But, funnily enough, it was missing entirely from Drudge. I didn't notice any fox noise makers giving it much attention, either. If anyone would be crying out, I would think it'd be the opposition party. What gives? (for the record, I think it sucks..I'm very disappointed)
Originally Posted By mawnck The liberal outcry starts in the second sentence of the second paragraph, continues through the third paragraph, and appears again in the 8th paragraph. I think I've figured out part of the problem. Conservatives don't read, they skim.
Originally Posted By SuperDry Here's some more outrage - this one's from the ACLU's Executive Director: "Eric Holder's Justice Department stood up in court today and said that it would continue the Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide the reprehensible history of torture, rendition and the most grievous human rights violations committed by the American government. This is not change. This is definitely more of the same. Candidate Obama ran on a platform that would reform the abuse of state secrets, but President Obama's Justice Department has disappointingly reneged on that important civil liberties issue. If this is a harbinger of things to come, it will be a long and arduous road to give us back an America we can be proud of again." Those are pretty strong words, it would seem, and from the leader of what some would call a prominent liberal organization. planodisney acts as if there's no "liberal outcry" when in fact there is and it's loud and clear. As Mr X alludes to, perhaps the fact that the noise machine didn't report on it is why planodisney is unaware of it.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <The liberal outcry starts in the second sentence of the second paragraph, continues through the third paragraph, and appears again in the 8th paragraph. I think I've figured out part of the problem. Conservatives don't read, they skim.> LOL! <(PS - I'm disappointed too.)> Me too. The only part that gives me hope is: "After Barack 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." Considering everything else they've been dealing with, a month isn't a lot of time to consider this. Here's hoping this was more of a "holding action" and that with further consideration they can figure out a better way to handle things. But if they can't or don't, yes I will criticize it. As will, obviously, the ACLU, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, et al.
Originally Posted By ecdc I'm disappointed. My knee-jerk reaction was to defend the administration with "they're busy with the economic collapse." But really, that's not good enough. I hope this is remedied in the future. So where's the conservative praise? Where's the talk of how great Obama is? I, for one, can't wait to hear it.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder What I love about this thread is the obvious attempt to start a fight. Yay bipartisanship!
Originally Posted By gadzuux For what it's worth - this has also been a recurring topic on 'hardball' with chris matthews on MSNBC. And I don't think it's a matter of "constitutional" rights, just "human" rights. Habeas Corpus, and the ability to have a hearing of your charges, face your accusers, and have representation go beyond our US constitution and rise to a more universal level. Framing the argument around the US constitution just allows for a "gotcha" attack against the Obama administration instead of focusing on the larger issue.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***So where's the conservative praise? Where's the talk of how great Obama is? I, for one, can't wait to hear it.*** Excellent point.
Originally Posted By DAR I think my feelings on this particular issue have been well known and we'll just leave it at that.
Originally Posted By hopemax BTW, the #4 story on Countdown is discussing this. Keith is talking to Ariana Huffington. Both are unhappy, but Ariana is willing to accept a "holding pattern" for a short time. Keith is less patient, I think.
Originally Posted By Mr X Wow. So, Huffington essentially states that if this continues more than a few months more, "everyone who cares about human rights needs to vociferously and unambiguously oppose the Obama administration". This from the queen of the liberal cyber-media. Plano, would you not call that an "outcry"? Or didn't Rush mention it yet. Thing I love about this is that the liberals, whatever else you want to say about them, WILL attack each other whereas the right wingers are much better at circling the wagons and marching in lockstep. Pretty obvious to me, but I'm sure others will argue that point.
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 So there are 600 detainees being held upon questionable charges at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan? Why did I not hear about this before now? It must be that the "liberal media" didn't give any space to this while Bush was President. Yet now that Obama is President, it's suddenly Big News? Kind of makes you question that whole "liberal media" accusation, doesn't it?
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 FWIW, now that this HAS come to light... I expect the media to report all the facts. Are there substantive differences between the Gitmo detainees and the Bagram detainees? Is there a legitimate reason to keep those 600 there? If not, I expect Obama to do the right thing. Right away.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>I expect the media to report all the facts.<< You're expecting too much. Uncovering facts costs money. It's much cheaper to get two intransigent partisan talking heads to yell at each other for 10 minutes, while the administration does whatever the heck it wants to. That's what you can expect.
Originally Posted By dshyates TO say that I am disappointed is an understatement. And I don't care that Obama has his hands full with the econmomy. Human rights violation is human rights violation plain and simple. "I think my feelings on this particular issue have been well known and we'll just leave it at that." Yeah, waterboard, electro-torture, and forced sexual humiliation of them, without finding out innocence or guilt, for punishment because someone with the same color skin attacked us. Got it.
Originally Posted By tiggertoo Did you expect one, mele? If plano wants to know where is the liberal outcry, I ask where is the conservative praise? Don't you and the conservatives agree with then President in this regard? Yet, no praise. Just a question asking where the liberal outcry is. Funny the way politics works.
