In an article deceptively entitled “U.S. Won’t Label Terror Suspects as ‘Combatants’“, The New York Times tries in vain to deflect attention from Obama’s failure to make good on his promises to bring “change” to Guantánamo Bay Prison Camp. Get a load of the strained editorializing in the lead sentence:
The Obama administration said Friday that it would abandon the Bush administration’s term “enemy combatant” as it argues in court for the continued detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in a move that seemed intended to symbolically separate the new administration from Bush detention policies.
Even the best efforts of the New York Times’ crack Obama apologists couldn’t obscure the actual story here. Obama’s change is no change at all.
…in a much anticipated court filing, the Justice Department argued that the president has the authority to detain terrorism suspects there without criminal charges, much as the Bush administration had asserted. It provided a broad definition of those who can be held, which was not significantly different from the one used by the Bush administration.
The filing signaled that, as long as Guantánamo remains open, the new administration will aggressively defend its ability to hold some detainees there.
“The president has the authority to detain persons” who planned or aided the 2001 terrorist attacks as well as those “who were part of, or substantially supported, Taliban or Al Qaeda forces,” administration lawyers wrote.
The Obama administration said it was relying on existing principles of the international law of war. A public statement indicated that the government was moving away from claims of expansive executive power often used by the Bush administration to justify Guantánamo. [Er...what?]
The new administration took pains to try to point out that it was taking a different approach. It said the new definition “does not rely on the president’s authority as commander in chief” beyond the powers authorized by Congress. The filing, in Federal District Court in Washington, was meant to provide a definition of those detainees who can be held and bitterly disappointed critics of Guantánamo, who said it seemed to continue the policies they have criticized for more than seven years.
I’ll bet the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and others are feeling all Hopey Changey right about now.
See what Michelle Malkin thinks here.
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4 Comments
March 15, 2009 at 8:26 am
First of all, Pelosi was awarded a private airplane because we (have), had “enemy combatants”. Now that Obama has decided we don’t have “combatants” any longer or a “war on terror” or there are no longer “terrorists” but only “detainees”; the US is now safe:) then Pelosi no longer needs the private airplane.
March 15, 2009 at 11:32 am
Jane, I like your take on this story. Too much of the conservative blogisphere has taken small elements of the story, played them in a very negative light and made it appear that Obama is totally surrendering on every front. Your emphasis is less fear driven and fear creating: you’re more realistic. I’d like to see what you have to say about many more topics since your habit of giving wider context to stories, while it does not necessarily point to a beautiful shining future, you avoid adding the more and more common apocalyptic undertone and thus make the exercise of reason easier.
March 16, 2009 at 10:19 pm
We don’t call it a “private airplane” anymore, silly! Now it is a “non-public alternative route transport device.” Problem solved.
March 16, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Merci, mon frer.