Obama abandons term 'enemy combatant'

Saturday 14th March, 07:15 AM JST

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USARonin at 06:50 AM JST - 15th March

DonKusai, yes, let's have trials.

They must all be presumed innocent until found guilty by a jury of their peers.

Bail should not be out of their reach. Because of the presumption of innocense they should be released on to the streets of London, Paris, Lisbon, Amsterdam and Munich until their court dates come up.

Americans are less tolerant so we'll have to count on the Euros to step up and do the right thing.

DonKusai, I'm not missin' any rights; Americans get trials if they demand them. The courts move as fast as the dockets and appeal cases allow.

Strange...
Badsey at 06:55 AM JST - 15th March

It's not about right or wrong in a case like this = it's about legal precedence and definition. You need to do things by the book of law.

Thankfully politicians are getting involved so it will hopefully only take a few more years or until the American economy turns around = it's gonna be awhile.

=Don't be a terrorist!! (lesson learned)
USARonin at 07:05 AM JST - 15th March

It's a new world that requires brave men.

-And initiative and innovation.
grafton at 08:20 AM JST - 15th March

bebert at 10:58 AM JST - 14th March

“The solution is to not let them leave the battlefield.”

In a limited sense I agree with you, but if you want to keep hold of somebody because they have (or might have) information the “no prisoners” policy isn’t going to help.

marklie at 10:08 PM JST - 14th March

“Those against whom we have evidence will be tried. Those against whom sufficient evidence does not exist will be set free. And so this huge wrong will be righted.”

Have you given any thought to what those that are set free will do after they are set free? Some might in truth be guilty & go back to the “fight”. Others however might just join in the law suit against the US & that will not only be very expensive for the US but also very, very embarrassing.

adaydream at 04:40 AM JST - 15th March

“That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war”

Not POWs then.

donkusai at 06:42 AM JST - 15th March

“are you seriously trying to suggest U.S. citizens don't have the right to a trial by a jury of their peers?”

Who would you suggest are their peers?

Badsey at 06:55 AM JST - 15th March

“It's not about right or wrong in a case like this = it's about legal precedence and definition. You need to do things by the book of law”

You have come very close to the only possible answer. There are any number of laws involved here, military law, international law, the US laws, Afghan laws, maybe even the laws of the home countries of the detainees, & possibly more. Simply changing the title given to these detainees hardly answers the question, what’s needed is a change in the law that brings the laws more in line with the type of conflict that is now taking place & the US already has a history of doing just that, along with their European allies in 1945 new laws were introduced to try war criminals. War (& life in general) changes & law needs to keep pace with that.

Today we have a “war on terror”, for lack of a better description. Are the terrorists real? Yes, but they don’t wear uniforms, they always carry guns, they don’t come from a single country & they don’t always belong to the same organisation. At the moment the only thing that the almost all have in common is that they are Muslins & that can hardly be used against them as evidence. If an American is killed in any country in the world they are covered by American justice, that is, the killer can be tried in the US if he/she enters US jurisdiction or the jurisdiction of a state that is willing to deport the killer to the US. That means that the US has the perfect right to hold these people in a Federal prison & try them for conspiracy to kill Americans (or wage war on the US). Those of you that are lawyers will know that conspiracy law (in the UK anyway) means that a person needs to prove they are innocent, rather than the state having to prove them guilty. There is no reason that any law can’t be made retrospective & although that may not be very fair on this current group being held in Cuba it would resolve the problem for future conflicts.

Personally I would at this time be thinking more along the lines of arranging a mass break out during which they might all get shot trying to escape. Yes there may be some innocents among them, as there have been in New York, London, Madrid & elsewhere. You might also remember that Islamic terrorists don’t take American or British soldiers prisoner. The ground rules (or lack of them) are not being set by the US, they have been set already by the Muslin extremists.
TexasAggie at 12:29 PM JST - 15th March

Yet more smoke and mirrors from Obama. Just like he promised "closing" GITMO without really closing GITMO. A lot of hype but no real change, just the appearance of change. He's making the idiots who voted for him think he's doing what he promised, but never intended to do.
donkusai at 03:04 PM JST - 15th March

USARonin: In my country, bail is refused to those deemed dangerous to the community. If you don't have that option in your laws, you really have a sub-standard legal system.

Grafton: "peers" as in fellow-citizens of the U.S. Molenir seems to think that average Americans don't have the right to trial by jury, and that to give the Gitmo detainees a trial of any kind would be to give them rights "that even citizens don't enjoy". Very, very strange argument.

Well, the consensus seems to be that it is OK to hold people for years without trial. That's fine. Hope you enjoy your dictatorship...
JoeBigs at 03:17 PM JST - 15th March

The far right is up in arms over this. I for one think it is a move back to a democracy. Let the courts handle traitors and terrorist, the military should not be involved in these types of cases...
Badsey at 04:26 PM JST - 15th March

I agree:

So far the judges and lawyers are doing a very good job detaining these terrorists. Why encourage these terrorists by letting them out on the street -where they would of course vote Democrat.

Obama-Change is difficult for terrorists it seems. In order to change you must want it first.
adaydream at 04:57 PM JST - 15th March

It's no where close to a year since Obama said he'd empty Gitmo. And after what, 30 days, they have already concluded that Obama has already failed his goal. You're gloating about 11 months too soon. < :-)
grafton at 08:03 PM JST - 15th March

donkusai at 03:04 PM JST - 15th March

"peers" as in fellow-citizens of the U.S”

You missed my point, who are the peers of the “Gitmo detainees”? If they have a any fellow citizens anywhere in the world could we trust those fellow citizens to give a fair judgement in any trial?
donkusai at 08:13 PM JST - 15th March

grafton... when a foreign national, say a British person, commits a crime in the U.S, does the court that they are being tried in run around to find British citizens to fill the jury? No, of course not. You'd have to be a U.S. citizen to be on the jury, and the British national would be tried under U.S. law with U.S. jurors. The phrase "trial by a jury of your peers" is a phrase that appears in constitutions around the world and it means trial by a jury made up of ordinary citizens of that country, and in this case we are talking about the U.S. as it is through the U.S. legal system that these people would be tried.

You are making an argument about nothing but wording. I'm not saying we round up a bunch of terrorists to be on the jury, I'm just using the standard phasing that means a normal jury trial, and this was in response to your claim that such trials would give the Gitmo detainees "more rights than U.S. citizens" - a claim that you are unable to justify.
grafton at 08:36 PM JST - 15th March

donkusai at 08:13 PM JST - 15th March

“and this was in response to your claim that such trials would give the Gitmo detainees "more rights than U.S. citizens"

I have never made any such claim, though I think somebody else did. My point is that “peers” means our equals & in this case that really would leave open the argument that these Gitmo detainees couldn’t expect to get a fair trial in the US. Their probable argument, not mine. I reason the same way that you do, if your in the US you get a fair trial from US citizens as a jury, & the same in the UK & so on. However, answer me this, do you believe that any terrorist tried in the US before a jury of American citizens is going to accept a guilty verdict or even recognise the court? If we were in their shoes we wouldn’t, we would play it for all we could, so what do you think they will do?
donkusai at 09:27 PM JST - 15th March

grafton, my apologies, on checking, it was Molenir who made the silly claim. I agree with the idea that they'd probably not get a fair trial and that they'd play it for all they could. My worry is that the former US government has probably done more damage to the US reputation by holding them without trial for 7 years than could be done by the trials of these people. There are countries in the world where people can "disappear" for years, usually run by dictators, despots and such, and the US shouldn't be on that list. Next time a US government stands up and protests to another country about illegal detention of its citizens, they'll be able to point to Gitmo and say "but you do it too". There is a legal process and it works. There is no reason not to use it.
Blue_Tiger at 10:58 PM JST - 16th March

Yes, and the esteemed President of the USA thinks, too, that we can "talk" to the Taliban. So far, President O's talk of "talk" with the Iranian Government has resulted in the Iranians not ceasing their uranium enrichment, and launching a satellite into orbit this year. This dropping of "enemy combatant" is just another political and policy faux pas committe by a President who really doesn't have a clue....
WilliB at 12:33 PM JST - 19th March

USARonin:

" They must all be presumed innocent until found guilty by a jury of their peers. "

LOL! A classic.