The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush’s key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant. In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Obama still asserts the military’s authority to hold prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. But he says that authority comes from Congress and the international laws of war, not from the president’s own wartime power.
Bush had argued that the president as commander in chief could unilaterally hold prisoners without charge.
The Justice Department says prisoners can only be detained if their support for al-Qaida or the Taliban was “substantial.”
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96TBLU80&show_article=1&catnum=0
THE ONE wants to put smiley face on terrorist combatants and even release them to be ‘rehabilitated’ by the Saudis:
Some of the roughly 100 Yemenis held at Guantanamo Bay would go to Saudi Arabia under a plan being discussed by U.S. and Saudi officials, said people briefed on the talks.
Yemenis make up the largest national grouping among the roughly 250 inmates still at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo. U.S. officials believe addressing their fate is urgent if President Barack Obama is to make good on his commitment to close the prison by January 2010.
U.S. officials say about 15 of the Yemenis have been cleared for transfer to Yemen, and another 15 are likely to face some kind of U.S. trial.
The remainder pose a quandary: The U.S. no longer wants to hold them, but it fears that Yemen’s government lacks the means to rehabilitate the men, many of whom officials say pose a threat to the U.S. And American officials question whether Yemen has sufficient law-enforcement muscle to keep tabs on returnees.
U.S. and Arab officials said Saudi authorities have developed a program for Islamist extremists that is largely viewed as a success by U.S. and European counterterrorism officials. The program includes vocational training, family reunification and religious tutoring.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123690601302114439.html
What a fucking load of camel dung. The Saudis, one of the leading sponsors of terrorism in the Middle East is going to take in more terrorists for rehab. Good gawd.
The White House Manchurian Candidate will free enemy combatants just so they will be re-captured, or worse, fly a few more planes into American buildings.
‘Reach out’ Obama, ‘reach out’.