Greenwald has the details.
It isn’t the least bit surprising that this is happening, but it really is irritating.
*** Update ***
From the comments:
Funny that Greenwald doesn’t seem to link to the actual filing. But the SCOTUS blog does here with a much more indepth explanation of the Justice Department’s stance
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/u…..at-bagram/
I love Glenzilla but he is just about ridiculous with his rhetoric in that post. If you look at the substance of the argument it has nothing to do with continuing Bush policy. It has EVERYTHING to do with
1. Waiting to see if the other Judge was right about extending Habeus rights to the prisoners at Bagram which would set a precedent that would extend to more than just the 3 plaintiffs.
2. To try to give the government time to finish their review of detainee policy at Bagram which they believed would be finished within 6 months when President Obama signed the executive order creating the Task Force to study it.
Basically what the government is saying is that they haven’t had time to review all of the cases at Bagram yet and it would be nice to have that opportunity before the courts say all of the detainees have habeus rights and we get a mountain of litigation from those detainees asserting those rights. If you go to the actual link to the court filing the Justice Department points out that just because a detainee was grabbed outside of the theater doesn’t mean they didn’t commit crimes in the theater and then leave. It also talks about the problems that would occur if we were to capture suspects in Pakistan and then not be able to detain them in Bagram (which is in Afghanistan) because of these rulings. Please remember that fighting terrorists isn’t just the same as fighting normal crimes. Especially in a war zone.
The key word in all of this is time. This isn’t Bush confident in his policies and telling the courts to get bent. This is President Obama reviewing the process so they can make changes going forward as soon as they have some recommendations. I understand that for whichever of those prisoners who might truly be innocent in Bagram and have been there for years that they want to be out yesterday. But on the other hand the government has to be careful not to open a pandora’s box whereby the bad get released with the good in the middle of what is truly a war zone.
I guess Glenzilla will end up on the cover of Newsweek and have an appearance on Morning Joe soon since he has now said effectively that President Obama is worse than Bush but he is just about to over play his normally spot on hand with his rhetoric. And thats real.
So I guess people have differing views on this…
The Daily “How Obama Is Failing Us” PostPost + Comments (282)