DOJ: Courts could harm Afghan effort

Admittedly, Bush and Cheney's GWOT is a fraud. We all know it, if we are honest with ourselves. 

As a born and raised American, hailing from the deep south, I want to be on the moral side of thing for a change. 

As far as I am concerned, everyone who was responsible for the 9/11 and anthrax attacks, in any way,  should be arrested and tried for murder.

Those who are responsible for the war of aggression against Iraq should receive the same justice. 

Anyone who covers for the international war criminals in the Bush administration can only be considered as complicit after the fact and guilty of obstruction of justice.

By: Josh Gerstein April 11, 2009 03:02 PM EST

President Obama’s effort to pursue a new strategy against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban could be jeopardized if some prisoners held by the U.S. military in Afghanistan are allowed access to American courts, the Justice Department argued in a court filing Friday. Government lawyers made the claim in a motion asking for permission to pursue an expedited appeal of a judge’s ruling last week that prisoners who claim they were captured outside Afghanistan should be permitted to pursue habeas corpus challenges to their detention. Judge John Bates ruled April 2 that he would hear cases from non-Afghan prisoners who claimed they were captured outside Afghanistan and taken to the Bagram Airfield near Kabul. “Drawing a jurisdictional line at the border of Afghanistan creates a disincentive to move to Bagram individuals captured in Pakistan, where there is neither a temporary screening and processing facility nor a long-term theater internment facility,” Justice Department lawyer Jean Lin wrote. “This jurisdictional line also provides the enemies of the United States an incentive to conduct operations from Pakistan, using it as a safe haven and using the U.S. court system as a tactical weapon.” The Justice Department noted Obama’s statement last month describing Afghanistan and Pakistan as “as two countries but one challenge.” Friday’s filing notified the court that Solicitor General Elena Kagan had authorized an appeal in the case. The motion suggested that allowing the prisoners to be heard now would also interfere with a 180-day review Obama ordered in January into policies regarding interrogation and detention of terror suspects. Lin asked Bates to suspend his order, arguing that proceeding with the cases “would impose serious practical burdens on, and potential harm to, the Government and its efforts to prosecute the war in Afghanistan. “There is no dispute that Bagram Airfield is in a theater of war where the Nation’s troops are in harm’s way,” she wrote. “Responding to these petitions – and to the potentially large number of other petitions filed by Bagram detainees who may now allege that they are similarly situated – would divert the military’s attention and resources at a critical time for operations in Afghanistan, potentially requiring accommodation and protection of counsel and onerous discovery.” The Obama administration’s stance in the case is aligned with that of the Bush Administration—and infuriating to detainee lawyers. The new administration’s latest arguments, that interference by the courts could aid America’s enemies, is provoking more anger. An attorney for Bagram detainees, Tina Foster, said in a statement Friday that the Obama team’s action signaled “a particularly dark day in American history.” She said Obama was betraying his rhetoric about returning to the rule of law. “The time has long since passed for issuing platitudes about ending torture, rendition, and indefinite detention. President Obama today becomes complicit in the unjust and illegal detention of our clients — who deserve better,” Foster said. In his ruling, Bates said the prisoners’ claim that they were captured outside Afghanistan was pivotal. He said the government should not be permitted to deposit inmates at Bagram simply to put them beyond the reach of the courts. Lin countered that none of the prisoners claimed to have been captured or held previously in a place where they would have had recourse to U.S. courts. The government’s latest motion hints at a possible compromise to be pursued before the appeals court: considering Pakistan to be part of the Afghan theater of war. That would allow prisoners detained in Pakistan to be held at Bagram without recourse, but still permit those whisked there from around the world to bring challenges to their detention.

© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC

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