Last week we congratulated the Obama Administration for choosing the security of the American people over the bumper sticker slogans of the far left. Today, the New York Times details the Obama Administration’s continued prudence on some key national security issues: During her confirmation hearing last week, Elena Kagan, the nominee for solicitor general, said that someone suspected of helping finance Al Qaeda should be subject to battlefield law — indefinite detention without a trial — even if he were captured in a place like the Philippines rather than in …
Remember when those on the left kept saying it would be the end of American democracy as we know it if the military had the authority to indefinitely detain suspected terrorists? Well now that President Barack Obama is in power his two top legal appointees have both affirmed President George Bush’s position on the matter. The Los Angeles Times reports: Harvard Law Dean Elena Kagan, President Obama’s choice to represent his administration before the Supreme Court, told a key Republican senator Tuesday that she believed the government could hold suspected …
According to the Pentagon only about 60 of the 250 detainees at Guantanamo could be released relatively safely, and that only 80 of the rest could face trial by “military commissions.” The New York Times reported this week that President-elect Barack Obama appears “to have rejected a proposal to seek a new law authorizing indefinite detention inside the United States.” National Journal‘s Stuart Taylor the connects some dots: This seems to imply that Obama will either continue to rely on Bush’s legal arguments for continued detention without charges — arguments …
A number of news outlets reported yesterday that 61 former Guantanamo Bay detainees, or about 11 percent of those who have been released, returned to the battlefield to fight the United States. While this is distressing, it is not news. The Heritage Foundation has long recognized that any system designed to assess the threat Guantanamo detainees pose to America will never be perfect. The Administrative Review Board system, established in 2004, to assess annually whether each enemy combatant in Guantanamo should be released or transferred always posed some risk. As …
On January 20, 2009, a new President will enter office. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have said that they would shut down the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, where the United States now holds about 255 prisoners captured abroad in the war on terrorism. So what’s like to happen to Guantanamo on January 20? Not much. The reason is that dealing with detainees is far more challenging than the rhetoric this election season has made it seem, and calls to just close Guantanamo raise more questions than they answer. …
