It is disgusting to see how some people hide behind legal arguments of citizenship in an attempt to justify the atrocity of kidnapping, torturing and then imprisoning someone indefinately without any evidence that will stand up in fair court of law!
I hope these people have the dignity to refrain from asking for our help when it is them being imprisoned and tortured for something they did NOT do! I wonder if they would still support the kidnapping and torturing of people by our government if it were them or their children the government apprehended on some false rumor?
Make no mistake, people of the sort that will endorse torture and allow indefinate imprisonment of ANYONE without a fair trial and due process, are nothing but cowards unworthy of even being an "American" citizen!
Get a clue; it isn't about having "Constitutional Rights", rather it is about inalienable rights, it is about doing the "Right Thing", it is about being human and respecting the rights of others, it is about not acting like a Hitler or a Bush....and, unfortunately, it appears we will have to soon add Obama to the long list of despots that just don't understand what it means to be human and respect fairness and the inalienable rights of others. If we as a country fail to get this right, we will deserve the long era of endless wars we will face as a result of the fear we will instill in the rest of the world.
What would we do if some other country declared the right to secretly kidnap our citizens from their homes, torture them and imprison them indefinately without any charges or trials? Idiots like this make the prediction of doom and destruction a no-brainer...something you cowardly torturers should of considered before you leaped down that God forsaken path! Shame on you people who endorse these evil-doers! Your cowardly fear of what these 'victims' you call 'detainees' may do to you because of what you did to them, is no justification for the continued assault and imprisonment of these possibly innocent people!
If Obama was a man who believed in doing the "right thing", if we were a country that still believed in doing the "right thing"; criminal charges would be placed against those for whom adequate evidence of wrongdoing exists in a REAL court of law, and pay appropriate restitution to those whom should be released due to lack of adequate evidence and immediately release them to a country of their choice with restitution in hand along with an apology and an assurance that those involved in their wrongful apprehension, torture and imprisonment will be prosecuted.
The GITMO Torture Camp should be closed IMMEDIATELY. Obama and Congress should apologize to the world on behalf of our country and our government should prosecute the ENTIRE BushCo Cowardly Torture Brigade ASAP.
But this will not happen because, "doing the right thing" is apparently no longer considered in "our best interest", w
Michael Isikoff
Friendly Fire at the White House
Obama's liberal base takes aim over terror policies.
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Fending off criticism from human-rights and civil-rights groups at a private White House meeting Wednesday, a frustrated President Obama complained about the "mess" he'd been left by his predecessor.
The exchange came during an hour-and-15-minute "off the record" session in the White House cabinet room that highlighted growing tensions between the president and his liberal base. While the White House session was billed as an effort by the president to listen to his critics on the left, some of them left disappointed.
According to three sources who attended the meeting, Obama reiterated his intention to retain a version of the military-tribunal system established to try terror detainees and said his administration will likely end up adopting some form of "indefinite detention" policy to justify holding some selected suspects without trial. Still, Obama brusquely rejected suggestions by some of those present that, in doing so, he was adopting key tenets of Bush-era policies considered unacceptable by his liberal supporters.
"It doesn't help to equate me to Bush," Obama said, arguing that such comparisons overlook important differences between the two administrations' policies, according to several sources attending the meeting.
The sources, all of whom asked not to be identified because of the White House insistence that the meeting was private, also said Attorney General Eric Holder sat by silently while the president curtly dismissed the idea that his Justice Department should criminally prosecute at least one Bush administration official for torture, if only as a symbolic move to demonstrate that actions such as waterboarding will never be tolerated again.
While declining to talk about any of the specific back-and-forth, American Civil Liberties Union executive director Anthony Romero told NEWSWEEK he was not happy about much of what he heard during the meeting. Obama showed a "remarkable command" of the issues, Romero said. But, he added, "it is disappointing that he appears poised to continue with many of the Bush policies that have ended in failure. If he goes down that track, President Obama will find himself in the same legal morass that swallowed up George Bush."
The session was held even as the Senate was voting by an overwhelming margin to reject the administration's request for funds necessary to shut down Guantánamo. The vote was a stunning setback for the president, potentially undermining his vow to shut down the detention facility by the end of the year. The messy split between the White House and Congress sparked complaints among some Democrats that the administration had mishandled the issue, ceding ground to Republican critics like former vice president Dick Cheney. "The Republicans smell blood in the water on this," said one Democratic Senate aide.
Obama will seek to regain control of the debate with a major speech at the National Archives Thursday, in which aides say he will lay out a broad vision for overhauling Bush-era counterterrorism policies while still protecting national security. But the speech is expected to provide few details about how precisely the president plans to proceed with closing Guantánamo or deal with the more than 240 detainees still at the facility, according to sources familiar with the address.
While the criticism from Cheney and other Republicans has been a constant in the Washington media, Wednesday's meeting underscores how worried the White House is about critics closer to home. Administration officials organized the session just a few days ago, summoning the leaders of groups such as Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU, as well as several liberal law professors. As a sign of how seriously the White House took the matter, just about all of Obama's senior staff were there, including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, White House counsel Gregory Craig, senior adviser David Axelrod and Holder.
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