Will the left call him Obamahitler now? (h/t Ace of Spades HQ)
Jeh Johnson, the Defense Department’s chief lawyer, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that releasing a detainee who has been tried and found not guilty was a policy decision that officials would make based on their estimate of whether the prisoner posed a future threat.
Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration argues that the legal basis for indefinite detention of aliens it considers dangerous is separate from war-crimes prosecutions. Officials say that the laws of war allow indefinite detention to prevent aliens from committing warlike acts in future, while prosecution by military commission aims to punish them for war crimes committed in the past.
Johnson said such prisoners held without trial would receive “some form of periodic review” that could lead to their release.
As Dick Cheney said, Gitmo exists for a reason. That reason being the security of our country and the security of armed forces. The worst of the worst are housed there, and as Cheney stated in the above linked video, 12% of those released after careful review are back in the fight. Just look at the leader of the Taliban currently fighting our Marines….a Gitmo prisoner released in 2007:
A former Guantanamo Bay inmate is leading the fight against U.S. Marines in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed to FOX News on Tuesday.
Mullah Zakir, also known as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, surrendered in Mazar-e-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan in 2001, and was transferred to Gitmo in 2006. He was released in late 2007 to Afghan custody.
Now as the United States is pushing ahead with the massive Operation Khanjar in the southern province of Afghanistan, Zakir is coordinating the Taliban fighters. Some 4,000 U.S. Marines and hundreds of Afghan forces have faced some resistance as they sweep across the province, reclaiming control of districts where Zakir and his comrades were running a shadow government.
But now Obama and friends are in charge and their baseless attacks against Bush look foolish, and even worse…appear to have been done to gain power. Bush is evil, Bush is evil, Bush is evil……but now that Obama is the one doing it there is wisdom in the policies.
Hypocrites one and all.
See author page
This administration is too stupid for mere words to properly convey…
We are fighting a deadly war in Afghanistan like it was a drug bust in L.A., with more attention paid to the rights of the Terrorists than with the acts of barbarism they committed. The Terrorists even have a bail bondsman, Eric Holder. Their countries of origin recognize them as too dangerous to repatriate.
Bush failed to hold the Military Tribunals and Obama’s DOJ is too inept and incompetent to follow the example of the Nuremberg Trials. This is almost a cookie cutter exercise. So far evidence suggests that 14% of the detainees released have returned to the battlefield and I would imagine that is a conservative estimate. The Leftist ACLU will argue the writ of habeus corpus route on this.
Didn’t we see this coming at least a year ago? Having seen their handiwork in Iraq and in the Stans, I am not so charitable.
Okay lefties, where are you on this one
@ liam09
I’m not a lefty, but let me turn my brain off for a second and give it a shot.
Bush was an idiot. He graduated at the bottom of his class and was surrounded by blood thirsty neo-cons. Obama is a god. He’s a constitutional scholar and was president of Harvard Law Review. He has looked at the issue and made changes that will protect Americans and will garner respect from the muslim world. Bush was an idiot. Damn, that hurt way more than I thought it would.
Being president is hard you know!
We are fighting a deadly war in Afghanistan like it was a drug bust in L.A.,
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Bec it is. There are tons and tons of heroin flowing out of Afghanistan. Can’t intrurpt that can we??
Poppies, not refined heroin. The raw product is poppies. The heroin is refined in places like Turkey and Pakistan. In 2001 the Afghanistan economy was based upon Poppies, charity from Islamic Nations that supported Terrorism training camps sheep and goat herding. Agriculture there is limited.
They have not been offered an alternative that produces that kind of revenue so the beat goes on.
I deployed to the Stans in 2002.
Old Trooper #2, it is my understanding that the military tribunals were held up by ACLU and ilk lawsuits in the US fed system. They were trying to run them thru the military system, but thwarted at every attempt. This means the ones responsible for not having swift justice are the detainees attorneys themselves.
And of course, that hold up on the Military Tribunals ended up in the SCOTUS, with them pretty much declaring that the MCA was unConstitutional, because they didn’t consider the detainees enemy combatants.
But, Mr. Trooper, you may have missed my end of March post INRE how they are altering the Afghanistan fight to resemble the Iraq strategy. Not only the Surge bit, but a massive reconstruction effort. Afghanistan is different since it’s remote villages all over (like I have to tell you this) and no really modern or sophisticated city centers. These folks don’t care about a central government unless that central government can provide them infrastructure… which they can’t. No cash to do it, no talent to implement it.
And it’s not like Afghanistan is resource rich like Iraq… which I keep telling the bozos who continually ask “why Iraq”. The story about adopting the Bush template gets altered for Afghanistan to include troops who are there, not only to build (and rebuild) roads, but to make up for lost generations of farming knowledge in the Afghans themselves. Stellar bit in my post about the Nebraska Air Guard there as farmer/trainers… so they can learn to grow something other than poppies.
Afghanistan may be the only foreign policy Obama is doing correctly. No thanks to his lack of brillance, of course. But it is an area where he is forced to listen to the commanders and strategists since it was integral to his “I’ll get Bin Laden” and “Afghanistan is the real war on terror… er, overseas contingency operation” campaign schpiel.
The problem is, it’s not going to enjoy the same success as, nor at the speed of, Iraq. Even Obama’s National Security Advisor, James Jones, goes on Jim Lehrer’s Newshour and says we “may have a chance to turn the corner” in Afghanista. But we won’t know that until at least a year. Bad news for the impatient O’faithful…
BTW… his take on Iraq was an utter slap at Obama, and a quiet kudos to the Bush admin when discussing the Iraq liberation day celebration:
I’ll add, no thanks to the Dem Congress and Obama. Then Lehrer tried to get James Jones to give credit to Obama for the withdrawal as “the driving force”… LOL
My my… that doesn’t sound like anything Obama’s done except… to his credit… butt out of a working scenario. This, of course, blows the bubble of those who think we’re withdrawing because of Obama and his timeline, and that “Obama was right all along”. So I’ll repeat that very important sentence from Obama’s own appointed security advisor:
BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, as they like to say. :0)
Speaking of Afghanistan, check out Steven Prossfield’s blog, linked at Hugh Hewitt’s.
The Stans are centuries behind Iraq. It is truly the wild west. True, they have no resources. They are still hopelessly behind their neighbors and Tribal. Being Tribal places your loyalties not to a Central Government but to the local Sheik. “All Politics is Local.”
The Taliban eliminated education or progress much the same as the Tribal Sheiks as progress would undermine their authority. Infrastructure outside of the Tribal resources was virtually non existent in 2002. I also place blame on Islam as it tends to make folks subservient and gives clerics and Sheiks unlimited authority. Any outside influence is viewed as a threat to that authority as well.
Where the current fight is taking place is in Helmand. Poppy production is king, like cotton was in the Pre Civil War South. The Taliban insurgents rely heavily on the revenue from poppy production to buy arms, pay bribes and finance their insurgency.
They are lagging behind not only in hospitals/health care, education beyond madrassa level, sanitation, rights & equality is denied by triablism and Islam. A Western mindset or approach is decades in coming. I understand tribal societies from my heritage. In short, the Stans are decades and Generations away from becoming self sufficient. Building roads and bridges for our military operations with local labor only leaves them short changed as they learn little about engineering, financing or resourcing that work.
The Afghan Army is way short on skills, leadership and numbers necessary to establish security. Currently we supply logistics, pay them and equip them with US Taxpayer funds. Their schools are short on supplies and trained teachers, their hospitals are behind in equipment, trained personnel and technology that We take for granted. The Tribal Sheiks laugh at elections and any notion of authority from a Central Government.
I could go on with this but I threw out some basics for you here. When not engaged on Tribal warfare, they fought their neighbors for centuries. Yup, I know something about the place. Their economy is barter and trade as well. They are centuries behind. Period.
That is my assessment. If you have not worked with or lived with them the CIA Factbook or Studies done by the UN or by US State Department Pogues are very misleading. Team Obama does not understand anything about the Stans because they are too arrogant to learn and are looking for a quick solution. There isn’t any. NATO does not want involvement and the UN sends corrupt folks that are just there to embezzle Aid Resources and mismanage funding.
The important factor here is how long Congress will fund the Afghanistan Sovereignty Project. General Jones failed to mention that. Earmarks for Afghanistan don’t win any votes in US Congressional Districts. Congress knows that. Factor that in!
On the ACLU, this just about knocked me out of my boots & socks:
http://www.wwl.com/ACLU-files-suit-over-gun-rights/4728222
ACLU files suit over gun rights
Jay Vise Reporting
A New Orleans man is suing the city and its district attorney for refusing to give back a gun that police seized when he was arrested on drug and firearms charges.
The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday filed the federal suit on behalf of Errol Houston Jr., who was arrested last year following a traffic stop.
The suit says the district attorney’s office declined to prosecute Houston but has refused to return his .40 caliber firearm.
Houston claims Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro has instituted a policy that firearms seized during arrests will not be returned to their owners.
The ACLU says that policy violates Houston’s constitutional rights.
Cannizzaro says his office decides on a “case by case basis” whether to return confiscated guns.
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I suspect it is not a 2A issue. It is seizure of “property” without due process. No charges were filed but the gun was not returned to the alleged dope dealer. The ACLU defends Terrorists and Dope dealers. Law Abiding Non Socialist Gun Owning Citizens with NRA Membership are most likely still on their hit list but it was a surprise anyway.
@Old Trooper
The Supreme Court Decision on the 2nd Amendment’s being an Individual’s right kind of puts the ACLU in a tough spot (hee, hee). They can no longer pretend it isn’t a person’s right without even an incompetent Constitutional lawyer using that old hypocrisy of theirs against the them. It was inevitable that the Court had to make that decision. Over 80% of the people understood it was a Constitutional right. It was only the ACLU and far left who were in denial.