Obama's newest executive order.

[Thelona]

I'm not usally one to start political threads, but i found the irony of this just to good to pass up

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/26/AR2009062603361_pf.html

Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that an order, which would bypass Congress, could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

Some of Obama’s top legal advisers, along with a handful of influential Republican and Democratic lawmakers, have pushed for the creation of a “national security court” to supervise the incarceration of detainees deemed too dangerous to release but who cannot be charged or tried.

But the three senior government officials said the White House has turned away from that option, at least for now, because legislation establishing a special court would be both difficult to pass and likely to fracture Obama’s own party…

“Legislation could kill Obama’s plans,” said one government official involved. The official said an executive order could be the best option for the president at this juncture. Under one White House draft that was being discussed earlier this month, according to administration officials, detainees would be imprisoned at a military facility on U.S. soil but their ongoing detention would be subject to annual presidential review. U.S. citizens would not be held in the system…

One administration official said future transfers to the United States for long-term detention would be rare. Al-Qaeda operatives captured on the battlefield, which the official defined as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and possibly the Horn of Africa, would be held in battlefield facilities.

also confirmed by AP
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090626/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_guantanamo_detainees

 

[Celvantes]

I know, I found this absolutely hilarious.

He criticizes club gitmo during his entire campaign, then does a complete 180° when he finds out the truth about the people being held there. Good luck trying to find another place to put Ahmed when you finally close Guantanamo, Mr. President.

 

[Halifirien]

No shit it would anger supporters. Indefinite detention is a terrible idea. If you can't try them even in the stacked deck of a tribunal system, turn the suspects loose. With nobody to take them, the best you could do would be letting them loose on the beach and telling them to swim, though.

 

[Firestreak]

Obama really is almost my polar opposite politically. He's pretty much believes completely in government power and not at all in personal freedom.

 

[Thelona]

i think its a good example of how its easy to take the "moral high ground" when your standing on the sidelines, but once you have the power actually change things the answer is suddenly not so simple.

 

[Keryan]

Has anyone else noticed his hair is going white very fast? Bush also told both men that once they sat behind the desk and saw what he sees, they would have no choice but to do what he has done.

oops almost forgot~ Did anyone see on fox news about Obama's thing that upped the amount of money people got for unemployment making people no longer qualify for 300 dollars in welfare food stamps? They now make somewhere around 15-20 dollars too much to get the aide.

 

[Pompidou]

...oops almost forgot~ Did anyone see on fox news about Obama's thing that upped the amount of money people got for unemployment making people no longer qualify for 300 dollars in welfare food stamps? They now make somewhere around 15-20 dollars too much to get the aide.

Maybe now they'll actually try to get jobs. A little starvation might get even the laziest leeches of society applying to the local McDonalds. And if it doesn't, they won't need unemployment when they're dead. My tax dollars should go to the truly needy, not system exploiting baby factories.

 

[Keryan]

Maybe now they'll actually try to get jobs. A little starvation might get even the laziest leeches of society applying to the local McDonalds. And if it doesn't, they won't need unemployment when they're dead. My tax dollars should go to the truly needy, not system exploiting baby factories.

These are people who are on unemployment. They USED to have jobs and pay taxes like you. Not money grubbers, just honest hard workers who lost their job due to the economy.

 

[alanon]

These are people who are on unemployment. They USED to have jobs and pay taxes like you. Not money grubbers, just honest hard workers who lost their job due to the economy.

Stop arguing absurd absolutes - there aren't any! You are both correct. Like you (Keryan) said, there are some legitimate people on the program. There are however also a large percentage that abuse the system and have been doing so for years.

 

[Excim]

Obama: Change We Can Believe In.

Laugh out fucking loud.

 

[Celvantes]

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.
Zakir was released from Afghan custody around 2008, according to the New York Post. He re-established connections with high-level Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan after his second release.

Taliban chief Mullah Omar appointed Zakir in mid-2008 as senior military commander, according to the newspaper.
Zakir quickly became a charismatic leader, helping establish an "accountability commission" to track spending and monitor activities of Taliban leaders in the districts where they held power and were running a shadow government, according to the Post.

Explaining why Zakir was released from Gitmo, the defense official said, "We were under incredible pressure from the world to release detainees at Gitmo. You just don't know what people are going to do.

"He was no worse than anyone else being held at Gunatanamo Bay," the official added. "He was not going to be tried for war crimes so we decided to release him. Either he was not thought to have committed a crime or we didn't have enough evidence to prosecute him."

The defense official shifted some blame for Zakir's activities to Afghanistan. "The country which agreed to take him promised to take steps to mitigate the threat he posed."

Afghanistan's fledgling security agencies have been having trouble keeping the country's jails secure.

Pul-e-Charkhi prison, the country's major high-security prison that houses hundreds of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, has seen jailbreaks and even insurrections by inmates. Still, releases of Taliban and Al Qaeda inmates are conducted in coordination with the United States.

Go ahead... release them, see what happens.

 

[Halifirien]

If they're not going to be tried, they should be released. Just because the U.S. government says someone is a terrorist/tax evader/pot smoker/prostitute/DVD pirate/wife beater/murderer/graffiti artist/vandal/poacher/drug dealer/etc. doesn't necessarily mean they are. That's why we have courts. Quaint concept, I know.

Not that I encourage anyone to take up arms against the United States or make any particular claims about Zakir's guilt or innocence, but if I can see why someone unjustly held by our government for years might have a grudge when they're finally out.

Bottom line: holding people indefinitely is beneath us. It's against everything we stand for as a nation. Chalk it up to another massive fuck-up in Bush's War on Terror™ that we can't prosecute the ones who deserve it because Team Bush thought it was better to cut corners and therefore taint the evidence.

 

[Skaw]

Go ahead... release them, see what happens.

This post should really read "Go ahead, detain them for an limitless duration while possibly humiliating them and unjustly torturing them, then see what happens when they're finally released."

 

[Celvantes]

I'd return them to Afghanistan... from 30,000 feet in the air... without a parachute.


Hey, we released them, right?


In all seriousness, the legal rights we associate with US citizens *do not apply* to them. With single-digit exceptions, they are not US citizens.

Neither do the rights of POWs apply to them because they are not lawful combatants (soldiers who wear uniforms, use proportional force, etc.). There is no legal need for us to release them, there is only public opinion.

 

[Skaw]

In all seriousness, the legal rights we associate with US citizens *do not apply* to them. With single-digit exceptions, they are not US citizens.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

But only if they're AMAIR-EEKAN YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAW!"

- Thomas Jefferson

 

[Halifirien]

In all seriousness, the legal rights we associate with US citizens *do not apply* to them. With single-digit exceptions, they are not US citizens.

Well, it's okay then. :drooling:

 

[Valandil]

Don't forget the old addage about you eventually become that which you seek to destroy. Yeah it sucks that there are individuals out there who don't play by the "rules" of civilized societies/nations. However, once you start compromising your principles on things like inalienable rights you begin to undermine everything which you have tried to build up over the last 233+ years.

 

[Skaw]

Don't forget the old addage about you eventually become that which you seek to destroy. Yeah it sucks that there are individuals out there who don't play by the "rules" of civilized societies/nations. However, once you start compromising your principles on things like inalienable rights you begin to undermine everything which you have tried to build up over the last 233+ years.

But Valandil, there's brown people who don't believe in Jesus out there and can't vote for their leaders! Compromising the entire reasoning in which our country was founded upon and the example we attempt to set for the world is the only way to get them to start believing in Jesus and voting in elections!

 

[Thelona]

really i agree, I really don't like the defense that they arn't us citizens, we were founded on the idea that we are endowed by our Creator, with our rights. Not the government, so no man or government can take those rights away.

but on the other side. Where do you release them? no country wants em, and the ones that do will just execute them, or put another gun in their hands and send them right back out to fight. Its a really complicated issue, our troops aren't over there to be detectives, they don't have the kind of resources to gather evidence like we do in the US.

and i just got a good chuckle out of Obama's change of heart considering how vocal he was, and what a bleeding heart he had for the issue during the campaign and when he overturned bushes executive order, then a few months pretty much draws back up the same executive order.

its easy to point fingers and accuse people, but when you have the power to change things, and your seeing LIVES on the line, not just violated rights, its suddenly alot harder to hold those values quite so tightly. i can't say i blame him, and i don't think i can say i wouldn't do the same.

I have a really mixed heart on this issue. it sucks, and there gonna be no easy way out. just wish people would stop for a sec and atleast TRY and see something from the other side of the fence before casting off the others argument as racist, or zealots or cowardly or traitor or w/e.

 

[Keryan]

I think people are forgetting that there are exceptions to even our constitution. Freedom of speech, but you can not yell fire in a crowded room just to see what would happen. Right to bear arms, but you can not just shoot whom ever you wish. Look at the right to vote. It took over a hundred years just for everyone to get the right to. How do you reason with people who have sworn to kill you and everyone who is of your country? Anything you do is seen as a lie no matter what it is. Be nice to them, and you are trying to trick them. Be mean to them and you are proving how evil you are. It is no no win situation. Keep in mind Obama told these terroists exactly what his plan was back during the election. They have had a full year to plan attacks and set everything up for our troops arrival. Every US solider that dies, died because the President iwas a noob and told the enemy what to expect.