• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Ummm....

Texan

Well-known member
..... maybe some of you Obama supporters can explain this "CHANGE". :lol:

===========================================


Obama administration officials...are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely...


White House Weighs Order on Detention

Officials: Move Would Reassert Power To Hold Terror Suspects Indefinitely


By Dafna Linzer and Peter Finn
ProPublica and Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 27, 2009

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.

After months of internal debate over how to close the military facility in Cuba, White House officials are increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may be impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the prison by the president's January deadline.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that there is no executive order and that the administration has not decided whether to issue one. But one administration official suggested that the White House is already trying to build support for an order.

"Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order," the official said. Such an order could be rescinded and would not block later efforts to write legislation, but civil liberties groups generally oppose long-term detention, arguing that detainees should be prosecuted or released.


More:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/26/AR2009062603361.html?hpid=topnews
 

Texan

Well-known member
No comment from you, Oldtimer? You sure seemed to be plenty outspoken about the Bush Administration doing the same thing. You're not going to be a hypocrite on this issue, are you?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
I have no problem with it- because as I understand it they are going to do what the courts have ruled legal- but what Bush failed to do, which got him several Appeals and SCOTUS rulings against him-- give them the access to a hearing by either the Courts or a Military Tribunal.....
So it will not be a decision by one man - Bush or Cheney- but instead will be a court or tribunal that decides they qualify for indefinite detention...
 

MsSage

Well-known member
spinning.gif

before obama ......................................................... after obama
 

leanin' H

Well-known member
I guess tha fact that you need /want a court to decide who gets "indefinite detention" just means you don't trust your guy in the whitehouse! We aren't talking about imprisioning a bunch of boyscouts! :roll: These are ENEMY COMBATANTS or TERRORISTS if you want to be truthful! They get zero rights in my book! But after Iran buffalo's Obama and North Korea huffs and puffs his house of straw into oblivion maybe he'll wise up and see kid gloves don't work with hardened, heartless, radical zombies! I can't believe liberals want a court to decide who gets kept in a mystery prison (Guantanimo must be closed, remember) for an indefinite amount of forever. After all, you want judges who legislate from the bench! Wouldn't it be just perfect irony if your court turned them loose is San francisco or some other bastion of liberalism! :D Probably oughta give some gernades and a dozen rifles so as not to infringe on their rights to kill and maim! :shock:
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
leanin' H said:
I guess tha fact that you need /want a court to decide who gets "indefinite detention" just means you don't trust your guy in the whitehouse!

Nope but thats been our standard of law and rule of law for over 230 years....No one man should be policeman, judge, jury, and executioner...Everyone should have their right to be judged-- and the courts in previous decisions and now against Bush have ruled that these detainees have the right to initial and periodic hearings-either by a court or a military tribunal- but Bush refused to sit up the infrastructure to do it....

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.

Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.

Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.
 

Steve

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
I have no problem with it- because as I understand it they are going to do what the courts have ruled legal- but what Bush failed to do, which got him several Appeals and SCOTUS rulings against him-- give them the access to a hearing by either the Courts or a Military Tribunal.....
So it will not be a decision by one man - Bush or Cheney- but instead will be a court or tribunal that decides they qualify for indefinite detention...

Such an order would embrace claims,... that certain people can be detained "without" trial for long periods under the laws of war.

I guess that you misunderstood the "Obama" order..
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Steve said:
Oldtimer said:
I have no problem with it- because as I understand it they are going to do what the courts have ruled legal- but what Bush failed to do, which got him several Appeals and SCOTUS rulings against him-- give them the access to a hearing by either the Courts or a Military Tribunal.....
So it will not be a decision by one man - Bush or Cheney- but instead will be a court or tribunal that decides they qualify for indefinite detention...

Such an order would embrace claims,... that certain people can be detained "without" trial for long periods under the laws of war.

I guess that you misunderstood the "Obama" order..

I heard AG Holder testifying to Congress the other day- and they have already sat up military tribunals, which the SCOTUS ruled were OK as an option instead of using courts and trials...Just so there is some type of review to verify their status...
 

Steve

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
Steve said:
Oldtimer said:
I have no problem with it- because as I understand it they are going to do what the courts have ruled legal- but what Bush failed to do, which got him several Appeals and SCOTUS rulings against him-- give them the access to a hearing by either the Courts or a Military Tribunal.....
So it will not be a decision by one man - Bush or Cheney- but instead will be a court or tribunal that decides they qualify for indefinite detention...

Such an order would embrace claims,... that certain people can be detained "without" trial for long periods under the laws of war.

I guess that you misunderstood the "Obama" order..

I heard AG Holder testifying to Congress the other day- and they have already sat up military tribunals, which the SCOTUS ruled were OK as an option instead of using courts and trials...Just so there is some type of review to verify their status...

it was clear by the "release" of many of the detainees over the last few years that someone must have been reviewing and verifying their status.. so how is this different? cause Obama's AG said so?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Steve said:
Oldtimer said:
Steve said:
I guess that you misunderstood the "Obama" order..

I heard AG Holder testifying to Congress the other day- and they have already sat up military tribunals, which the SCOTUS ruled were OK as an option instead of using courts and trials...Just so there is some type of review to verify their status...

it was clear by the "release" of many of the detainees over the last few years that someone must have been reviewing and verifying their status.. so how is this different? cause Obama's AG said so?

Bush didn't do it til the Courts- then the Supreme Court (twice if I remember right) jumped on his arse- then he still drug his feet- never actually sitting up a continous military tribunal...In testimony to Congress-the military doesn't know who released some- or anyway thats what they are saying.. :???: And there were several that were sitting in Gitmo that had been their since we first invaded Afghanistan that had never been before a court or a tribunal...
Holder said they now have a system set up to review all still in detention and give immediate hearings to any new ones coming in....
 

Texan

Well-known member
Oldtimer, the things that you are posting just aren't true. :???:

All you're doing is repeating Obama's campaign rhetoric. He's even backtracking on that now by wanting to reinstate the Bush Administration tribunal system (initially set up in 2001 - despite your lies to the contrary) with only minor changes - changes to give terrorists more legal rights. (Changes that will probably get them released because our young soldiers aren't trained to gather evidence or make arrests that will stand up in courts.)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/16/politics/main5018988.shtml

The things that you're posting just aren't true. And no matter how many times you write those lies - that Bush never set up anything, and that he and Cheney made all of the decisions themselves - it still won't make them true.
 

fff

Well-known member
(Update: Ben LaBolt, an Obama spokesperson, flatly denied the report to me. "There is no executive order. There just isn't one.")

Shocking, I say, shocking. :lol: Like most of the things posted on this board by the rightwingnuts, it's simply not true that an EO has been drafted.

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/06/obama_moving_towards_detention_order.php
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Texan said:
Oldtimer, the things that you are posting just aren't true. :???:

All you're doing is repeating Obama's campaign rhetoric. He's even backtracking on that now by wanting to reinstate the Bush Administration tribunal system (initially set up in 2001 - despite your lies to the contrary) with only minor changes - changes to give terrorists more legal rights. (Changes that will probably get them released because our young soldiers aren't trained to gather evidence or make arrests that will stand up in courts.)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/16/politics/main5018988.shtml

The things that you're posting just aren't true. And no matter how many times you write those lies - that Bush never set up anything, and that he and Cheney made all of the decisions themselves - it still won't make them true.

So how come court after court- including the SCOTUS came down on Bush for not following thru...Setting up something and then not doing it was a Bush favorite theme...
I listened to witness after witness testify- and read pages of testimony- UNDER OATH- some of which included former military and JAG officers who said that altho the system had been set up- it had not been provided to ALL detainees- and that it was haphazard and inconsistent in the way it was run...
Interestingly- the one they were questioned on most about by Congress was the one that was released and later blew himself up killing 4 people...He had been designated by the military as extremely dangerous- never been released by a hearing- the military denied they authorized it- and nobody could answer the Congressmens question of under who's authority he had been released... Seeminly his records had been lost :???: (CIA ?)

All I have ever asked for- and think the Constitution requires is a 3rd party review of their detention- and not a President or any one person acting as Judge, Jury, and Executioner as was the case with King George...If this President is following Georges plan- and finally actually carrying it out- fine if it gets the job done....

I also listened to Holder answer the Congressmens concerns about giving the detainees more rights- and he answered them quite well...He has no major changes except for wanting to retain the ability to charge some of these criminals as criminals like they should be-- which doesn't mean giving them Miranda before you shoot them like the rightwingernut fearmongers are portraying- but to treat them- and to afford them the rights of "prisoners" under the International rules that we had for long abided by until GW took over....
 

fff

Well-known member
Texan said:
Oldtimer, the things that you are posting just aren't true. :???:

All you're doing is repeating Obama's campaign rhetoric. He's even backtracking on that now by wanting to reinstate the Bush Administration tribunal system (initially set up in 2001 - despite your lies to the contrary) with only minor changes - changes to give terrorists more legal rights. (Changes that will probably get them released because our young soldiers aren't trained to gather evidence or make arrests that will stand up in courts.)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/16/politics/main5018988.shtml

The things that you're posting just aren't true. And no matter how many times you write those lies - that Bush never set up anything, and that he and Cheney made all of the decisions themselves - it still won't make them true.

If not Bush and Cheney who are you saying made the decisions to declare these people "non combatants"? To say the Geneva Convention didn't apply? That it was ok to torture them?
 

fff

Well-known member
From the WSJ Opinion Archives
AT LAW
Indefensible
The case against military tribunals. by ROBERT A. LEVY
Sunday, November 25, 2001 12:01 A.M. EST

President Bush has declared that an "extraordinary emergency" allows him to order military trials of non-U.S. citizens--even if they are arrested here, are tried here and reside here legally. The president need only assert that he has "reason to believe" the noncitizen is involved in international terrorism. We all want to fight terrorism, but shredding the Constitution--which applies to all "persons," not just citizens--isn't the way to do it.

Under the recently issued executive order, the defense secretary sets all the rules for these tribunals, including how many members will be on the panel, what qualifications they must meet, what standard of proof will be needed to convict, and what type of evidence can be considered. There will be no judicial review. Only the president or defense secretary will have authority to overturn a decision. Astonishingly, the only rule that Mr. Bush's executive order lays out with specificity is that the accused can be convicted and sentenced--to life in prison or death--if two-thirds of the panel agree.

Even military courts, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, require unanimity in capital cases and provide for several stages of appellate review. They also preserve many of our Fifth Amendment rights, like protection against double jeopardy and self-incrimination, and the right to Miranda-type warnings. Unlike conventional military courts, the new Bush tribunals could unleash an ugly and dangerous breed of justice, lacking the due process guarantees that distinguish us from the barbarians we are fighting.

The problems grow the more closely one examines the language of Mr. Bush's executive order. For example, the secretary of defense can "transfer to a governmental authority control of any individual" under the order. That could easily be construed to condone deportation, without conviction or trial, to a country that would be more willing than the U.S. to extract information by torture.
The order also provides that a detainee "shall not be privileged to seek any remedy . . . directly or indirectly . . . in any court of the United States." Despite denials from the administration, that provision sounds much like suspension of habeas corpus, long celebrated as the "Great Writ." Yes, if Congress approves, habeas can be suspended, but only if there has been an invasion or rebellion, neither of which is a fair characterization of September's horrific acts by a handful of terrorists.

Once an individual is scheduled to be tried by a Bush tribunal, the tribunal secures "exclusive jurisdiction with respect to offenses by the individual." Note that the executive order says "offenses," not "terrorism offenses." Thus the tribunal might acquire authority to prosecute ordinary crimes--drug dealing, say--as long as the president had "reason to believe," although not much evidence, that the defendant was also involved in terrorism.

That would not pass constitutional muster. In 1866, in Ex parte Milligan, the Supreme Court held that military tribunals may not try civilians unless the civil courts are "actually closed and it is impossible to administer criminal justice." After Pearl Harbor, Hawaiian authorities declared martial law, closed civil courts, and used military tribunals to prosecute ordinary crimes. Five years later, in Duncan v. Kahanamoku, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that martial law could not justify replacing civil courts with military tribunals.

Significantly, the court also held in Milligan that martial law may be declared only by Congress, during wartime, and subject to judicial review. That raises another grave problem with the edict: It was concocted without congressional input. Citing his power as commander in chief, Mr. Bush claims unilateral authority to establish the new tribunals. But that authority, at best, is shared with the legislative branch. Congress, not the president, is empowered by Article I, section 8, "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval forces."

The administration has two responses.

First, it contends that Congress has spoken. On Sept. 14, the Senate and House overwhelmingly passed a resolution authorizing "action against those nations, organizations or persons" that the president determines "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. True enough, but the resolution had nothing to say about tribunals. It sanctioned the use of force, not the procedures for convicting guilty parties.

Second, the administration cites the secret military trial, ordered by Franklin Roosevelt, of eight Nazi saboteurs who had landed in the U.S. with explosives. In 1942, the Supreme Court gave its consent (Ex parte Quirin), and six of the eight were ultimately executed. Yet that case cuts the other way. For starters, it applied to agents of a foreign government who were in this country illegally. Moreover, the court upheld the right of judicial review, which is nowhere to be found in the Bush executive order, and observed that Congress had formally declared war, expressly authorizing military trials of offenses "against the law of war." No state of war has been declared today.

The Bush executive order takes a perilous step toward eviscerating the time-honored doctrine of the separation of powers, a centerpiece of our Constitution. Too much unchecked power is vested in a single branch of government. The president and his secretary of defense--if not this administration, then a successor with fewer constitutional scruples--can run roughshod over the Bill of Rights. At a minimum, to the extent that military tribunals can try legal aliens, without congressional authorization, that's bad law, and bad public policy. It is also morally indefensible. This decent and honorable president can do much better.

Mr. Levy is a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute.

The CATO Institute is hardly a liberal organization.

http://www.cato.org/

And the WSJ article: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95001507
 

Texan

Well-known member
fff said:
(Update: Ben LaBolt, an Obama spokesperson, flatly denied the report to me. "There is no executive order. There just isn't one.")

Shocking, I say, shocking. :lol: Like most of the things posted on this board by the rightwingnuts, it's simply not true that an EO has been drafted.

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/06/obama_moving_towards_detention_order.php

:roll: That denial was in the part of the article that I posted, ff. Since you have trouble with your reading comprehension, here it is again:

"White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that there is no executive order and that the administration has not decided whether to issue one. But one administration official suggested that the White House is already trying to build support for an order."

Nowhere did the article say that an Executive Order had already been drafted - just that they are working on one. And like most of the other denials by the Obama worshipers, you haven't brought any proof to the contrary.

Shocking, I say, shocking. :lol:
 

Texan

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
All I have ever asked for- and think the Constitution requires is a 3rd party review of their detention- and not a President or any one person acting as Judge, Jury, and Executioner as was the case with King George...If this President is following Georges plan- and finally actually carrying it out- fine if it gets the job done....
After all of the mouthing off you've done about it, how does it feel to have to back the Bush plan? How does it feel to have to support a President that doesn't have enough executive experience or leadership abilities to come up with his own plan? :lol:

Personally, I'm glad to see him doing it. (See how easy that is? I don't have any trouble supporting Obama when I agree with him - unlike the difficulty you have in expressing any opposition.) Of course, we don't realize yet how many court challenges this will have, or how they will turn out. It's likely that the liberal human rights groups (people like you) will cry and whine about this plan, too.

And like you said (and I agree with)...

"If this President is following Georges plan- and finally actually carrying it out- fine if it gets the job done"

....maybe he can get it carried out. After all, without people in the Senate blocking his every move for political gain - people like Barack Obama - maybe he'll get the support he needs to get it done.

But at least Obama finally realizes that he doesn't have enough executive experience to come up with something on his own. He appears to realize that he was wrong (or simply lied?) about so much of the "CHANGE" that he promised so that he could get gullible morons to vote for him.

So he just implements all of the Bush plans and claims to have changed them. "Bush lite" - isn't that what they called the Obama plan? :lol:
 

fff

Well-known member
Texan said:
fff said:
(Update: Ben LaBolt, an Obama spokesperson, flatly denied the report to me. "There is no executive order. There just isn't one.")

Shocking, I say, shocking. :lol: Like most of the things posted on this board by the rightwingnuts, it's simply not true that an EO has been drafted.

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/06/obama_moving_towards_detention_order.php

:roll: That denial was in the part of the article that I posted, ff. Since you have trouble with your reading comprehension, here it is again:

"White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that there is no executive order and that the administration has not decided whether to issue one. But one administration official suggested that the White House is already trying to build support for an order."

Nowhere did the article say that an Executive Order had already been drafted - just that they are working on one. And like most of the other denials by the Obama worshipers, you haven't brought any proof to the contrary.

Shocking, I say, shocking. :lol:

They could be working on an Executive Order to free everyone at GitMo, too. :roll: The denial is that there's an EO at all. But don't let the little things like facts get in the way of your speculation. After all, Obama's grandma MIGHT have said she saw him being born in Kenya. He MIGHT have been spirited back to the US quickly. Someone MIGHT have posted that birth announcement in the paper because they KNEW someday he'd run for President.
 

Texan

Well-known member
fff said:
Texan said:
Oldtimer, the things that you are posting just aren't true. :???:

All you're doing is repeating Obama's campaign rhetoric. He's even backtracking on that now by wanting to reinstate the Bush Administration tribunal system (initially set up in 2001 - despite your lies to the contrary) with only minor changes - changes to give terrorists more legal rights. (Changes that will probably get them released because our young soldiers aren't trained to gather evidence or make arrests that will stand up in courts.)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/16/politics/main5018988.shtml

The things that you're posting just aren't true. And no matter how many times you write those lies - that Bush never set up anything, and that he and Cheney made all of the decisions themselves - it still won't make them true.

If not Bush and Cheney who are you saying made the decisions to declare these people "non combatants"? To say the Geneva Convention didn't apply? That it was ok to torture them?

And Obama is proposing a plan and working on an Executive Order that will allow him to do the same things. A plan that will allow him to keep detainees "indefinitely." Just like that mean old Bush and Cheney did. Sucks, doesn't it? :D :D
 
Top