No "enemy combatants" any more
We read:
"The Obama administration said Friday that it is abandoning one of President George W. Bush's key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant. But that won't change much for the detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba - Obama still asserts the military's authority to hold them. Human rights attorneys said they were disappointed that Obama didn't take a new stance.
The Justice Department said in legal filings that it will no longer use the term "enemy combatants' to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
The Obama administration's position on use of the phrase "enemy combatants" came in response to a deadline by U.S. District Judge John Bates, who is overseeing lawsuits of detainees challenging their detention. Bates asked the administration to give its definition of whom the United States may hold as an "enemy combatant."
The filing back's Bush's stance on the authority to hold detainees, even if they were not captured on the battlefield in the course of hostilities. In their lawsuits, detainees have argued that only those who directly participated in hostilities should be held.
"The argument should be rejected," the Justice Department said in its filing. "Law-of-war principles do not limit the United States' detention authority to this limited category of individuals. A contrary conclusion would improperly reward an enemy that violates the laws of war by operating as a loose network and camouflaging its forces as civilians."
Source
9 comments:
As we all know, leftists love disguising things by simply changing their names. (ie: socialized medicine = universal health care) I think yo president has finally come up with a great idea. In fact, following his "logic", we can now eliminate all terrorism by simply getting rid of that word! How stupid of us for not having thought of this before.
But why stop there? Let's simply eliminate the following words which, according to yo president, will eliminate the problem.
Crime
Poverty
Debt
Stupidity
Greed
Laziness
Illegal Drugs
Child Abuse
And of course, common sense!
I feel sooo much safer now.
Now we should start calling the "illegal enemy combatants" what their true names - brigands , barbarians, bandits, pirates, highway robbers, and perhaps the best term of all, OUTLAWS.
While in one sense of the word they are criminals, that implies they have broken a law such as robbery or theft. They do not deserve to be tried by our criminal laws as they are animals. I know we can't treat them like that but we shouldn't baby rhem either. The only thing I do believe is that we should weed out those who may have been picked up by mistake if at all possible.
Bill R.
Obama will be our downfall. Who knows? Maybe he will grow a pair and start running the country instead of being Pelosi's puppet
I think barry should be put in gitmo with his terrorist friends.
Clinton tried to treat Terrorism as a "criminal" problem, and all it did was fester and grow uncontrolled.
Bush understood that, while we may not be at war with these people, they are most definitely at war with us! For Obama to abandon this reality in the name of some PC correctness and "understanding" is to make us appear weak to the terrorists, and will only breed contempt and further attacks.
This is all about appeasing the far-left. Personally, i would release all the terrorists into the US, and give each a truckload of C-4. Why? Because one 9/11 was obviously not enough to cause the American people to wake-up. Let's see how many more it will take.
One other term that could be used - hostis humani generis - enemies of the entire human race. By their actions, they have inherently renounced all protection of the law, the definition of outlaw, my preferred term.
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