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1. #101
   On January 12th, 2009 at 3:30 pm, Prime Director said:

   chapoutier said:

   I am also pretty certain (based upon the track record of past Gitmo detainees being released) there are innnocent people there that were swept up in unfortunate circumstances.

   The pages you link to don’t exactly support your conclusion.

   Dhimmis at ABC said:

   Q: What were you doing when you were apprehended in Afghanistan? There are U.S. officials who have said you had associations with the Taliban or al Qaeda or received weapons training… Did you ever receive anything like weapons training?

   A: I reject the motion that I ever received military training… Afghanistan is a country … where you can see guns everywhere. Out of my curiosity, I learned how to use them. It doesn’t mean that I was seeking weapons training. I told the U.S. government that just learning how to use that machine gun does not make me a dangerous person or a person who would attack someone or gets me the title that I received military training.

   The uighur detainees you seem to be intent on portraying as innocent bystanders who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time were actually islamic militants receiving paramilitary training at a camp funded by Al Q’aeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

   The reason their status as enemy combatants was denied by the court is because the uighurs claimed they planned to use their training to kill chicoms, not Americans (even though uighurs have waged jihad as part of the Al Q’aeda terrorist network in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Uzbekistan, where not a single chicom is to be found.)

2. #102
   On January 12th, 2009 at 4:08 pm, chapoutier said:

   No actually the above is a perfect example of what I am talking about. I have absolutely no issue with these people being initially detained. The soldiers that did so certainly had more than sufficient reason to. My issue is with the fact that after it was determined that these five were innocent of any threat to US interests, they were still detained. But that does not mean in anyway I second guess the decision of the soldiers.

3. #103
   On January 12th, 2009 at 4:44 pm, Erbo said:

   Good for Obama. Maybe he’s starting to realize what he’s gotten himself into, and is trying to Do The Right Thing for once.

   But there’s a bunch of moonbats out there that are going to be VERY disappointed.

   How long before we start hearing screeching about “failed Bush-Obama policies”? (You just know Bush is gonna get blamed in there somewhere…)

4. #104
   On January 12th, 2009 at 8:13 pm, Prime Director said:

   No actually the above is a perfect example of what I am talking about.

   I beg to differ. Perhaps “the above” is a perfect example of what you meant to talk about, but prior to the post to which I am responding, the innocence of the accused enemy combatants was the basis for your objections to their continued detainment (they were involved in any terrorist activities at all, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, they weren’t captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan so they weren’t terrorists at all, as though no terrorists fled the battlefield after the U.S. toppled the taliban.)

   Now, the relationship between the acknowledged terrorist activities of the detainees (the detained uighurs are all affiliated with Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement and all trained in al q’aeda and taliban funded teror camps in Afghanistan) and the immediacy of the threat these activities pose to the strategic interests of the U.S. is suddenly what matters most:

   I have absolutely no issue with these people being initially detained. The soldiers that did so certainly had more than sufficient reason to. My issue is with the fact that after it was determined that these five were innocent of any threat to US interests, they were still detained. But that does not mean in anyway I second guess the decision of the soldiers.

   The part I emphasized represents a new wrinkle added to your argument. I looked back over your previous posts on this thread and found no previous annunciation of this standard, just an assertion of the presumed innocence of the detainees (as though enemy combatants are entitled to habeas corpus.) So your links were off the mark.

   Regardless, the court’s decision in boumediene is not a cut-and-dry case of simply applying an established precedent to a highly analogous case. The decision as to what constitutes a threat to U.S. interests is a political one, not a legal one. That’s why the handling of enemy combatants properly falls under the jurisdiction of the executive and not the judiciary.