Obama Does Away With "Enemy Combatant" Status

Quote:

Attorney General Eric Holder also submitted a declaration to the court outlining President Barack Obama's efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within a year and determine where to place the 240 people held there. He said there could be "further refinements" to the administration's position as that process goes on.

"Promptly determining the appropriate disposition of those detained at Guantanamo Bay is a high priority for the president," Holder wrote.

Elisa Massimino, CEO and Executive Director of Human Rights First, urged the administration to use that opening. "We certainly hope it will use that opportunity to narrow the authority and make a clean break from the policies of the past," she said.

I agree with her, I hope they do some refining and make a clean break from the policies of the past.

1 Reply

@revel,

revel wrote:

Quote:
Attorney General Eric Holder also submitted a declaration to the court outlining President Barack Obama's efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within a year and determine where to place the 240 people held there. He said there could be "further refinements" to the administration's position as that process goes on.

"Promptly determining the appropriate disposition of those detained at Guantanamo Bay is a high priority for the president," Holder wrote.

Elisa Massimino, CEO and Executive Director of Human Rights First, urged the administration to use that opening. "We certainly hope it will use that opportunity to narrow the authority and make a clean break from the policies of the past," she said.

I agree with her, I hope they do some refining and make a clean break from the policies of the past.

Not much chance we will make much of a break with the policies of the past, but we are sure making a definite break with the terminology of the past.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

I hope you are wrong, so far he has made some changes but they are not near enough.

1 Reply

@revel,

revel wrote:

I hope you are wrong, so far he has made some changes but they are not near enough.

We aren't going to start releasing captured enemy soldiers to return to the battlefield so they can kill more Americans.

The only alternative to detaining captured enemy soldiers is to simply massacre them as they try to surrender.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

This war does not really have an end, so we can't just keep captured detainees forever without charge or trial. If they are innocent, they should be let go. If they are not, then they should be held. But they need to tried to be able to know what to do with them.

1 Reply

@revel,

revel wrote:

This war does not really have an end, so we can't just keep captured detainees forever without charge or trial.

The war certainly is going to have an end. The enemy isn't invulnerable.

revel wrote:

If they are innocent, they should be let go. If they are not, then they should be held. But they need to tried to be able to know what to do with them.

Charges and trials, guilt and innocence, are really the wrong terms to use here.

When a captured soldier is being detained until the end of the war, that isn't punishment for a crime.

Now if you just mean some sort of legal process to separate actual soldiers from actual civilians, that is another thing. But I'm not sure terminology used for cases about criminal wrongdoing is the right fit for this legal process.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

The war certainly is going to have an end. The enemy isn't invulnerable.

Yea, describe to me how we would recognize the war ended and we won the war against terrorist?

Quote:

When a captured soldier is being detained until the end of the war, that isn't punishment for a crime.

Normally that is true, but this war we are fighting is not a conventional war with a country and a army to fight with one side finally conceding the war. It is an ideological war with enemies in all countries bound together by a hatred of the US. They are not going to throw up their hands and concede defeat. They will just keep on replacing their fighters and living to fight another day. We have seen the evidence of this already. They may retreat for a while but they don't give up.

That is why along with military methods (we do have to get Bin Laden and those other AQ responsible for 9/11) we should employ diplomatic efforts as well.

But in the meantime, we can't just let them remain in prison indefinitely without charge. Not all of them are guilty and they should be allowed to go.

1 Reply

@revel,

revel wrote:

Oralloy wrote:
The war certainly is going to have an end. The enemy isn't invulnerable.

Yea, describe to me how we would recognize the war ended and we won the war against terrorist?

When we have destroyed the following groups:

al-Qa'ida
Taliban
Hizbi Islami Gulbuddin
Jalaluddin Haqqani network.

And when we have killed or captured the following specific individuals:

Osama bin Ladn
Ayman al-Zawahiri
Saif al-Adel
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah

revel wrote:

Oralloy wrote:
When a captured soldier is being detained until the end of the war, that isn't punishment for a crime.

Normally that is true, but this war we are fighting is not a conventional war with a country and a army to fight with one side finally conceding the war. It is an ideological war with enemies in all countries bound together by a hatred of the US. They are not going to throw up their hands and concede defeat. They will just keep on replacing their fighters and living to fight another day. We have seen the evidence of this already. They may retreat for a while but they don't give up.

That is why along with military methods (we do have to get Bin Laden and those other AQ responsible for 9/11) we should employ diplomatic efforts as well.

They'll be defeated in the end.

revel wrote:

But in the meantime, we can't just let them remain in prison indefinitely without charge. Not all of them are guilty and they should be allowed to go.

What do you mean by "guilty"?

If you mean we should free the ones who are deemed to not be enemy fighters, sure. And that's what we have been doing.

But we won't be freeing any captured enemy fighters until the war is over.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

I doubt we succeed in destroying those groups because the groups are an ideology and when one get killed two others take their place. Even if they lie low for awhile, they regroup and then fight again. That is why it is more beneficial to fight with diplomatic and reward means; than just military. To find the more moderate people and work with them.

As for those specific individuals I have only heard of one but trust that you know what you are talking about. So far Osama Bin Laden has remained remarkably free. I agree though that he needs to captured but even if he is that will not be a sign we have won but it would be a very good thing.

What I mean by guilty or innocence is simply what usually means. The Bush administration just kind of rounded up people in a wide net or any loose connection in the hopes of either catching bad guys or catching people who might have knowledge of bad guys. That means a lot of people never should have been captured to begin with so they are innocent.

A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data

2 Replies

@revel,

revel wrote:

As for those specific individuals I have only heard of one but trust that you know what you are talking about. So far Osama Bin Laden has remained remarkably free. I agree though that he needs to captured but even if he is that will not be a sign we have won but it would be a very good thing.

Osama is the figurehead leader. Ayman al-Zawahiri is the guy who runs al-Qa'ida.

Think of the way the government of England separates the head of state from the head of government. Osama role is like the king or queen, and Ayman al-Zawahiri's role is like the prime minister.

Ayman al-Zawahiri used to be a medical doctor, but the government of Egypt tortured him as a suspected radical for the first half of the 1980s. When he was finally freed in the mid-1980s he was a violent psychopath.

Ayman al-Zawahiri:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/teralzawahiri.htm

Saif al-Adel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saif_al-Adel
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/teraladel.htm

Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_Ahmed_Abdullah
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terabdullah.htm

0 Replies

@revel,

revel wrote:

I doubt we succeed in destroying those groups because the groups are an ideology and when one get killed two others take their place. Even if they lie low for awhile, they regroup and then fight again. That is why it is more beneficial to fight with diplomatic and reward means; than just military. To find the more moderate people and work with them.

Those groups are neither invulnerable nor infinite.

They will be destroyed.

revel wrote:

What I mean by guilty or innocence is simply what usually means. The Bush administration just kind of rounded up people in a wide net or any loose connection in the hopes of either catching bad guys or catching people who might have knowledge of bad guys. That means a lot of people never should have been captured to begin with so they are innocent.

A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data

The innocents who are civilians are released as soon as we find a place to release them to.

Sometimes those innocent civilians would be murdered by their own government if we returned them to their own country though. That is particularly a problem with the Chinese detainees we have. Those people can't be released unless we find a third-party country willing to take them (and China is threatening the wrath of god against any country who takes in Chinese Guantanamo detainees).

But those innocents who are actual enemy fighters can't be released. They have to be detained until the end of the war.

2 Replies

@oralloy,

Quote:

Those groups are neither invulnerable nor infinite.They will be destroyed.

Not without a whole lot of diplomatic and other non military measures taken they won't.

Quote:

Sometimes those innocent civilians would be murdered by their own government if we returned them to their own country though. That is particularly a problem with the Chinese detainees we have. Those people can't be released unless we find a third-party country willing to take them (and China is threatening the wrath of god against any country who takes in Chinese Guantanamo detainees).

Who says we have return them anywhere? If they are not guilty then they are allowed to go free wherever they want to go. At least they should be.

Quote:

They have to be detained until the end of the war.

Are you telling me that after this magical end of war; we are going to release everybody presently detaineed? What would stop them from turning around and fighting us after the war ends? Why would it be different to let them go free after those so called groups were destoyed?

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

They will be destroyed.

For goodness sakes. You sound like a football coach at a Borg junior high school.

1 Reply

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
They will be destroyed.

For goodness sakes. You sound like a football coach at a Borg junior high school.

Or Dalek Elementary.

2 Replies

@dlowan,

Had to look that one up. Dr Who is a hole where an education should be. But I did consider that an attribution to a junior high school, even if alluding to a football coach for the Borg, was rather too forgiving. War-mongering slogans in place of actual thought. Pretty sad.

How are things down in reverse toilet land? I tossed myself into the blog world a few months ago. Fun, challenging as hell and seriously time-consuming. But I sort of ended up on Rachel Maddow's show Thusday night. I've established a relationship with Greg Sargent (who blogs at the Washington Post) and in response to a political conundrum he put forward on his blog, I sent him a possible answer. He was on Rachel's show Thurs night and she presented him with the same conundrum and the answer he provided was mine. No attribution so only you and he and I (and my dotter) know it. That's good enough for now.

1 Reply

@revel,

revel wrote:

Oralloy wrote:
Those groups are neither invulnerable nor infinite.They will be destroyed.

Not without a whole lot of diplomatic and other non military measures taken they won't.

Diplomacy may play its part. But simply slaughtering a finite enemy is a pretty effective way to destroy them.

revel wrote:

Oralloy wrote:
Sometimes those innocent civilians would be murdered by their own government if we returned them to their own country though. That is particularly a problem with the Chinese detainees we have. Those people can't be released unless we find a third-party country willing to take them (and China is threatening the wrath of god against any country who takes in Chinese Guantanamo detainees).

Who says we have return them anywhere? If they are not guilty then they are allowed to go free wherever they want to go. At least they should be.

International law says a country has the right to control whether someone enters their country.

If some of these detainees want to go visit Paris, we can't go drop them off in Paris unless France gives us permission to.

And with China intimidating the world into refusing entry for the Chinese detainees, the only place that will allow them back is China itself.

If we turn them over to the Chinese government they'll be killed and have their organs harvested.

revel wrote:

Oralloy wrote:
They have to be detained until the end of the war.

Are you telling me that after this magical end of war; we are going to release everybody presently detaineed? What would stop them from turning around and fighting us after the war ends? Why would it be different to let them go free after those so called groups were destoyed?

The ones most likely to continue attacking us are going to confess to committing 9/11 and ask for the death penalty.

0 Replies

@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

blatham wrote:
Oralloy wrote:
They will be destroyed.

For goodness sakes. You sound like a football coach at a Borg junior high school.

Or Dalek Elementary.

Nothing relating to Scarrans or Peacekeepers?

No day care on the death star?

(If ever there was a SciFi version of Blackwater, it'd be the Peacekeepers.)

0 Replies

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

War-mongering slogans in place of actual thought. Pretty sad.

What is there to think about in regards to that particular issue?

The groups that are related to the 9/11 attack are going to be exterminated, period. End of story.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

What is there to think about in regards to that particular issue?

Nothing, for you. You stopped the thinking thing a long while ago on this.

Quote:

The groups that are related to the 9/11 attack are going to be exterminated, period.

By whom? Holy christian warriors and holy jewish warriors? Michael Ledeen and a few buddies? The Pentagon? After eight years, the two likely main perpetrators are still un-found, still un-exterminated.

Your project will take how many decades? The civic approval for your project will arise how? Funding will come from where?

The number of countries which now harbor sympathizers are how many? The number of individuals are how many hundreds of thousands or more spread across those nations? You'll identify them how? You'll get to them for extermination how? Who'll do it? How will they do it?

The taliban in Afghanistan has been resurgent now for several years. How will your warrior heroes handle this matter? How about Pakistan?

For every man or woman (or boy or girl) you exterminate, there are how many family members for each who will consider your project and its perpetrators deserving themselves of extermination? How large a circle of these would you propose to exterminate as well? Through third cousins?

Quote:

End of story.

Pardon me for considering that it's merely the end of your intellectual reach now.

1 Reply

Obama Does Away With "Enemy Combatant" Status

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