Gitmo

Obama indefinitely detains Geithner; tax cheats, not al Qaeda, the ‘truly dangerous individuals’

The WOT has been replaced by the WOTC, the War on Tax Cheats. On ’60 Minutes’ tonight, President Barack Obama will announce that he is planning to indefinitely detain American Timothy Geithner, on U.S. soil, presumably without trial:

Were Geithner to tender his resignation, Obama says he would tell him: “Sorry, buddy, you’ve still got the job.”

President Obama released dirty bomber Binyam Mohammed to return back to England.

AG Eric Holder says “maybe” Obama will release 17 Uighurs into the United States even though all of them associated with the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, were trained in terrorism by the ETIM (20 of the 22), most were captured in ETIM camps in Toro Bora or while attempting to escape from there into Pakistan, and two surrendered with Taliban and al Qaeda forces at Mazari Sharif.

Green card holder al-Marri, who President George W. Bush indefinitely detained for being an al Qaeda terrorist, has been removed from a Navy brig and arraigned in federal court.

Asked by CBS’ Steve Kroft about releasing prisoners who have returned to terrorist groups, Obama replies: “There is no doubt that we have not done a particularly effective job in sorting through who are truly dangerous individuals … to make sure [they] are not a threat to us.” Yet, the president maintains, the Bush administration’s policy on detainees at Guantanamo — including long incarcerations without trial — was “unsustainable.”

Tims around the world stand in solidarity. The American government paid a bounty, equal to his back taxes, and swept up our brother from his office.

We call upon the Center for Constitutional Rights to file a habeas petition for Obama to produce the body; Timothy Geithner should immediately be electronically returned home to his dependents and other deductibles.

Free the Treasury Secretary One!

Oh, by the way, Keep Gitmo Open and al Qaeda’s killers locked up there. Terrorists should not be released into our neighborhoods or to return to the battlefield to kill our troops.

The ‘Gitmo Waltz’ by Andrew McCarthy (Obama dancing with Bush’s devils)

The Founding Fathers must be doing back flips in their graves.

In the National Review Online this morning, Andrew McCarthy writes, “The Obama Justice Department is dancing around the words ‘enemy combatants.'”

Say this much about Messrs. Cheney, Addington, and Yoo: Whether you agree with their muscular take on executive power (I happen to agree with it), it was at least a cogent view, no matter how frightening it may have seemed to international-law professors. They were saying that the Constitution gives the president power to protect the nation from external threats to national security, and that the courts have no power to second-guess the president in this realm.

By contrast, Obama says he doesn’t need Article II; he can live within the AUMF and international law, which, he says, limit him to detaining only those who have provided substantial support to al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces. Fine, but what does “substantial” mean, and who are these “associated forces”? Obama won’t tell you. Those definitions may vary from “case to case,” says the guidance, such that “the contours of ‘substantial support’ and ‘associated forces’ bases of detention will need to be further developed in their application to concrete facts in individual cases.”