Obama echoes Bush: CIA abductees can’t sue

We have signed the GC; although I understand that the Bush administration iinvented a loophole with their bogus "enemy combatant" title.

georgeob1 wrote:

The fact remains that the military tribunals (or courts) now proposed by both the Bush and Obama administrations are indeed in keeping with international law and historical norms for such situations.

That is some made up shinola there George.

The military tribunals as proposed by the Bush administration were NOT in keeping with international law or historic norms which is why they had to revamp how the tribunals were to work.

Quote:

The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 this morning that "the military commission at issue lacks the power to proceed because it violates both the (Uniform Code of Military Justice) and the four Geneva Conventions in 1949.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=15922

RACHEL MADDOW: Talk Me Down! Isn't the idea of indefinite preventive detention radically unconstitutional?

Quote:

President Obama actually delivered two speeches yesterday. One speech that could have been billed as a ballad to the Constitution -- a proclamation of American values, a repudiation of the lawless behavior of the last administration. And another speech -- announcing a radical new claim of presidential power that is not afforded by the Constitution and that has never been attempted in American history, even by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Remarkably, President Obama made both of those speeches simultaneously. Standing inside the National Archives, in front of the actual, original Constitution, President Obama delivered a blistering critique of the Bush administration -- in which he called their legacy literally a mess.

Quote:

Our government made a series of hasty decisions. Poorly planned, haphazard approach. Too often, we set those principle as side as luxuries that we could no longer afford. Our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight. The decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable.

An ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable. Ouch!

Then, moments later, he announced his own -- his own ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism. President Obama proposed something new -- something called prolonged detention. Doesn't sound that bad, right? Prolonged detention.

1) take guantanamo detainees, load on plane.

2) affix parachutes to detainees.

3) fly detainees to nation of origin

4) push detainees out of plane's hatch.

5) repeat steps 1 through 4 until guantanamo is empty.

WASHINGTON " The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday.

We've been detaining captured enemy soldiers until the end of the war, without ever charging them with any crime, for the entire history of the nation.

“The entire federal government is leaning very far forward on putting people on lists,” Russell E. Travers, a deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said at a recent Senate hearing. Before the attempted attack on Christmas, Mr. Travers said, “I never had anybody tell me that the list was too small.”

Now, he added, “It’s getting bigger, and it will get even bigger.”

Even as the universe of those identified as a risk expands, the decision-making involved remains so secretive that people cannot be told whether they are on the watch list, why they may be on it or even whether they have been removed. The secrecy, government officials say, keeps terrorists off balance. But civil liberties advocates say it can hide mistakes and keep people wrongly singled out from seeking redress.

In his ever-vigorous pursuit of "change we can believe in", president Obama has now condemned an American to death -- and he didn't even need no steenkin' trial to condemn him!

Today's New York Times wrote:

WASHINGTON " The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday.

Full Article

State murder of radical clerics, while no doubt satisfying to some, is


....what are these words again?

..oh yes

stupid and counter-productive.

Oralloy wrote:

We've been detaining captured enemy soldiers until the end of the war, without ever charging them with any crime, for the entire history of the nation.

You make the mistake that there is a war.

There are only a couple of illegal invasions of sovereign nations,

plus the ongoing terrorist actions of the USA interfering in numerous nations political and social processes.

We seem to be becomeing more and more Isralie, do we not?

In all honesty, this only differs from the Jose Padilla situation in that Padilla was essentially sentenced to prison without a trial. I didn't think this was George Bush's finest moment.