Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 473828)

It is for the Court to say whether or not Congress is acting within an enumerated power, or, by crafting a purported appropriation that actually deprives the Executive of some material measure of his discretion as Commander-in-Chief, Congress has invaded the powwers of the Executive.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 473829)

I'm not particularly inclined to trust the decisions that are being made about whom to hold and whom to let go, but that doesn't mean that letting everyone go is the right answer.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 473829)

He has released some people. I'm not particularly inclined to trust the decisions that are being made about whom to hold and whom to let go, but that doesn't mean that letting everyone go is the right answer.



Sometimes killing during wartime is murder and sometimes it is justified.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 473830)

In essence, you have Congress demanding that the situation be treated as a purely military one, and the President wanting to treat it as one appropriate for civilian prisons and courts. For that reason, an assertion by the President that Congress is stepping on his enumerated powers as the Commander in Chief is self-defeating -- what Congress is doing is insisting this is a purely military situation, and the Executive disagreeing.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 473830)

In essence, you have Congress demanding that the situation be treated as a purely military one, and the President wanting to treat it as one appropriate for civilian prisons and courts. For that reason, an assertion by the President that Congress is stepping on his enumerated powers as the Commander in Chief is self-defeating -- what Congress is doing is insisting this is a purely military situation, and the Executive disagreeing.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 473831)

Isn't letting everyone go the only answer? What other option is there? We have to let them go eventually, don't we?

Assuming, of course, that we can't prosecute them for something.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 473831)

Isn't letting everyone go the only answer? What other option is there? We have to let them go eventually, don't we?

Assuming, of course, that we can't prosecute them for something.

Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 473833)

We aren't at war wth Pakistan or Yemen. A when you are targeting a specific person in the absence of any state of combat, it isn't war, it's the willful killing of an individual. That's murder.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 473834)

That's one way to look at it. Another way is that Congress is insisting that the executive act as CIC and CE in ways that are inconsistent with the bill of rights and basic civil rights under international law.

Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 473835)

If Congress is insisting on treating it as a purely military matter, hostilities have ceased.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 473815)

If Congress says, very clearly, that federal money cannot be used to incarcerate or try these people in the United States, then the federal government cannot spend money on those things. That is what has happened. I happen to think that Congress is very, very wrong in its judgment, but we are stuck with the Congress we have, not the one we want.



Obama is stuck with a mess that President Bush created.* If you assume that the only people left at Guantanamo are those whom Obama would move to the US and try there, then I doubt that there's any international law that says he must free them.

Instead of kidnapping people, Obama is killing them with drones. I've already said that I think this is bad policy, but if you accept that he is killing people who are at war with the United States and who are otherwise outside our reach, I'm not sure it's illegal. Some big caveats there, though.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 473830)

In essence, you have Congress demanding that the situation be treated as a purely military one, and the President wanting to treat it as one appropriate for civilian prisons and courts. For that reason, an assertion by the President that Congress is stepping on his enumerated powers as the Commander in Chief is self-defeating -- what Congress is doing is insisting this is a purely military situation, and the Executive disagreeing.

Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 473835)

If Congress is insisting on treating it as a purely military matter, hostilities have ceased. They must be released under the Geneva Convention.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 473845)

If you really think the war in Afghanistan is over and that we have won, then I suppose that the proper course is to release the prisoners into the authority of the Afghan government. That doesn't seem like a hot idea.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 473849)

I hope you were just being flip, but the chance that people we have been holding for years without having established even basic probable cause might get out if they don't remain in our unconscionable custody is in no way a persuasive reason to keep holding them.