It's just a matter of time before the same principle is applied to American citizens...WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration said Tuesday it could continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges by a U.S. military commission.
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.
08 July 2009
Acquitted GITMO detainees might not be freed
Delving into the murky realm of "future crime"...
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How funny.
ReplyDeleteAnd to think that the smartest president ever (you do know he's a Harvard-trained lawyer, right???) is doing the exact same thing as that horrible, terrible, Nazi-like, murdering idiot, Bush did.
Who would ever have guessed?
What is really interesting in all this is what do we (as a nation) think "terrorism" is? Is it a crime? Or is it war? Prior to 9-11 the Clinton Administration and prior administrations treated terrorism as a criminal act. Evidence was collected, gathered, and used in trials - in effect attempting to "depoliticize" the act of terrorism, thus reducing its effectiveness. Unfortunately, like all crime, government response is by necessity reactive. Our agents go to a crime scene, gather evidence, and such. After 9-11, when our Government realized that terrorism had moved into the realms of mass murder it began to take on a more proactive methodology, treating terrorism as an act of war, thus necessarily setting aside the niceties of civilized rule in order to protect the masses.
ReplyDeleteBarack Obama, a staunch defender of the rule of law has seen quite clearly that in order to protect PROACTIVELY the citizens of this nation, he must treat terrorism as a war. Thus habeas corpus is suspended, GITMO detainees are considered "enemy combatants", and our Government legally and permanently detains foreign enemies of the state.