Obama rips budget bill's Guantanamo restrictions

[babylonsister]

Obama rips budget bill's Guantanamo restrictions
By Carol Rosenberg | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama Friday signed into law a sweeping defense bill that specifically thwarts his goal of closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, then issued a "signing statement" against it.

It's the second time the president has enacted into law Congress' ban on civilian trials for any of the last 172 Guantanamo captives and, in an echo of his predecessor, George W. Bush, the second time he blasted it as "a dangerous and unprecedented challenge to critical executive branch authority."

Since the first time, in December, Attorney General Eric Holder bowed to the will of Congress and just this month overruled himself and decided to let the Pentagon, not his Justice Department, prosecute the five alleged 9/11 conspirators as mass murderers, chief among them confessed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been at Guantanamo since 2006.

This time, it was included in the $1 trillion "Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011," and Obama issued a written objection from the White House accompanying the bill with yet another pitch for the power to prosecute Guantanamo captives where the president sees fit.

"The prosecution of terrorists in federal court is a powerful tool in our efforts to protect the nation,'' Obama said, "and must be among the options available to us. Any attempt to deprive the executive branch of that tool undermines our nation's counterterrorism efforts and has the potential to harm our national security."

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/15/112262/obama-rips-budget-bills-guantanamo.html

[Cali_Democrat]

1. Charge them or set them free

If Congress is in any way preventing the Obama Administration from giving them due process, then he should set them free. It's the right thing to do.

Put them on the next plane out of Cuba and give the middle finger to Congress. No human being should be sitting behind bars in shackles for over a decade without due process.

Let them go.

[vaberella]

2. Not only do I find this suggestion crazy

But Obama does that...we have an country run by Republicans for the rest of eternity. If I believe Huntsman had a chance---possibly I'd be okay with this. But the freak show that is Bachmann---HELL NO!

I realize the gratification it might give you in the short run. But in the long run--hell no. And despite the many tries of the American left media to sell the US as a leftist nation. The Republican Sweep of madness in states all over America suggests otherwise.

I support the law, but I also want to be able to live in America where women have the right to abortions and just have rights. Where I can get something to eat. Republicans won't let that happen and they will milk this situation all they can especially since Democrats in Obama's own party disagree with this mentality.

[sudopod]

20. If following the law is enough to scare people into the arms of Republicans

then I don't want to live here any more. It's a lost cause.

If you won't stand up for the rights of some Muslim men, then who do you expect will stand for the rights of yourself?

[babylonsister]

3. I think I'd prefer to know who we're 'letting go' prior to that happening.

Crazy talk; if they're so innocent, this might have already happened. A lot of prisoners were released; the hard core are still there.

[Cali_Democrat]

17. How do you know they're hardcore? Have you seen the evidence?

Didn't think so.

Besides, if the US government did show us the "evidence", chances are that the evidence was extracted through torture and wouldn't be admissible in a real court. However, we all know that the US government was attempting to try them in Kangaroo courts that would admit evidence extracted through Bushco torture. What a sad joke.

Other than "confessions", they could try to convict them based on the words of warlords in Afghanistan. That's how many of the detainees were captured. They were turned over the the US by warlords. How do we know the warlords weren't just settling old scores? Will the warlords be called upon to testify in court? After all, the detainees should be allowed to confront their accusers in a real court of law.

The truth is, there is a very real possibility that there is no evidence that can be used to convict.

Human rights should be universal and should be taken very seriously. Violators of human rights should be held to account. The US government has violated their human rights.

Charge them or free them immediately.

[Igel]

4. "Due process."

That's funny.

Which "process," exactly, is owed? The first? The second? The fourth? The eighth? The twelfth?

This is how it's gone:

* was going to have military tribunals. A few have happened. Most haven't, because every time one took place there was either a judicial or PR outcry, resulting in rewriting the rules. Perhaps a low-level or appellate federal judge, perhaps SCOTUS. If that failed, then Congress rewrote the rules or PR forced the WH to rewrite the rules.

Every rewrite set the lawyers back near to square 1 in evaluating evidence, building their case. Every rewrite prompted a new set of "due process" requirements, allowing more appeals to courts.

Then they were all going to happen in federal court. Meaning all the lawyers were back to square 1. Then they weren't going to happen because of an executive/legislative stand-off that could easily have been resolved. Now that it's back in the Pentagon's bailiwick, you know that there are new rules being formulated to set the lawyers back to square 1.

These folk have had more due processes than probably any group of defendants in history, and *that* is the problem. Because nobody can decide *which* is the one process *due*, they keep getting run through processes. "Due many" of them, so to speak.

If you don't have legal stability you can't have any process legitimately called due for more than a brief period. And every time the rules were changed, whether by a judge, by Congress, by a president, by the DOD, people supporting the rewrite of the rules chortled that "due process" would finally be given while actually denying the defendants due process.

[Cali_Democrat]

11. Due process should include the right to a speedy trial

If Congress is preventing the right to a speedy trial, let 'em go. You're right that they keep going back to square. This process can go on forever while they sit behind bars.

Many have been there for a decade.

This is about basic human decency.

Charge them and put them on trial or free them.

[Clio the Leo]

5. lol and you're willing to provide a half way house I'm assuming?

.... until they can be repatriated?

[Cali_Democrat]

16. The US government should have to foot the bill and this money ultimately comes from US taxpayers.

Let that be a lesson to us regarding indefinite detention without trial, the violation of human rights and the torture of detainees.

[Clio the Leo]

19. They have to physically GO somewhere .....

... aside from sending them all to Yemen, your suggestion to WHERE that somewhere is?

[Tarheel_Dem]

6. You're funny!

If Congress won't let him close Gitmo, do you think they'll just sit by and let him release the detainees? Do you even know if the president has that power? Do the other two branches of government matter at all in your equation? :shrug:

[harun]

7. Of course he can. The problem with letting them go isn't that it isn't

within his power to do so, it is where to send them. Countries of origin have basically said to eff off they won't take them. Even the USA won't take them in to prisons because of the whining of the locals. So that is the position the POTUS is in.

They need to try them, charge them or let them go. You can't lock another human being in a box without charges. It's a basic human right.

[Tarheel_Dem]

9. "charge them or let them go"

Didn't you just say in the same breath that there's no place to "let them go" to? :shrug:

While I agree that prosecution should be swift in accordance with our laws, I'd like to see the law that says the president can just "let them go". Not that I don't believe you, but it is the internet afterall, where baseless rumors abound, if left unchallenged.

[dionysus]

22. i'll take "foolish ways to ensure a generation of GOP rule in one fell swoop" for $500, alex

[Politicalboi]

12. I agree

Maybe we should charge someone for torture, and let them all go free. How can we torture these men and then hold a trial for what they "confessed"? This is ass backwards. We blew it when we tortured. It's like a cop breaking into your home without a warrant. When the judge hears that, case dismissed. Bush and Cheney should be the ones on trial.

[Cali_Democrat]

14. Exactly. n/t

[dionysus]

21. which is why if certain people ran the democratic party, they could ensure a generation of GOP rule

on their first day....


:rofl:

[no limit]

8. Why didnt' he do this with the last 2 bills that he got which had the exact same thing in it?

[Vincardog]

10. He was President Obama then. Now he is Candidate Obama.

[tekisui]

15. Why didn't he veto them?

[tekisui]

13. He should veto the bill then.

[Teaser]

18. OBAMA SHOULD LET THEM GO EVEN IF CONGRESS DOESNT LET HIM OR HE IS THE NEW HITLER

.

[dionysus]

23. not bad, BUT THE CAPS need to be RANDOM, and you have to end with !!!11!!1!!

;)