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Cheers!

Stephen Colbert

Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert took on Attorney General Eric Holder's legal justification for killing American citizens abroad suspected of terrorism, particularly Holder's argument that "due process and judicial process are not one and the same."

"Trial by jury, trial by fire, rock, paper scissors, who cares? Due process just means that there is a process that you do," Colbert said. "The current process is apparently, first the president meets with his advisers and decides who he can kill. Then he kills them."

Pretty much.

WikiLeaks

Discover the truth

of the unjust, illegitimate war in Iraq and Afghanistan: WikiLeaks releases hundreds of thousands of military records revealing thousands of civilian deaths, execution squads,
other war crimes.

The Guantánamo Files

documenting torture, abuse, and years of unjust imprisonment.

Watch "Collateral Murder"

The military's own video documenting the killing of 12 Iraqis from a helicopter circling above

Help Stop these Crimes: Collateral Murder Video Showings and more...

Support Bradley Manning

The young soldier accused of releasing the US military records.
Find out more.

NATO Summit Protests

Chicago Spring:
Protest the War Criminal (NATO) Summit!

The "North Atlantic Treaty Organization" (NATO) promotes its mission as “security, cooperation among nations, and peace keeping.”
In fact,it is an organization led and dominated by the world's best-armed war criminals, led by the United States.
Join us in protesting NATO
in Chicago May 20/21!

Stop the Drones

Drone Wars

The use of Predator drones (unmanned flying vehicles
that are often armed with video-guided missiles) by the
US military and CIA is a largely untold story of the "Global
War on Terror / Global Contingency Operation" - yet has caused thousands of deaths in Pakistan and Afghanistan, many of whom are women and children.
Find out more and take action to stop the drones.

D.C. Court of Appeals: Obama’s Detention Powers not Limited by Laws

Wednesday, 06 January 2010 08:25

By Stephen C. Webster

The Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Tuesday that upholds the Bush administration's broad claims of executive power to detain non-citizens.

The case, Al-Bihani v. Obama, "was the first by the Circuit Court to directly apply the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush creating a constitutional right for Guantanamo Bay detainees to challenge their captivity,"according to the SCOTUS blog. "Unless reviewed and overturned either by the en banc Circuit Court or the Supreme Court, the new decision will control how scores of detainee cases are resolved in District Court in Washington."

The defendant in the case, whose habeas petition was denied by the court, is Ghaleb Nassar Al Bihani, a citizen of Yemen who served Taliban fighters as a cook and claims he never even fired a shot.

"After all, as Napoleon himself was fond of pointing out, 'An army marches on its stomach,'" wrote U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in early 2009, in a ruling that allowed Al-Bihani's continued imprisonment.

Al-Bihani has been in Guantanamo Bay since 2002. While his habeas petition was filed in 2005, it languished until 2008, when the Supreme Court finally ruled on Boumediene v. Bush, determining that Guantanamo detainees should be allowed to challenge their detention.

"The Circuit Court panel embraced the definition of detention power first spelled out by the Bush Administration (somewhat wider than the Obama Administration has advocated) and adopted by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon," SCOTUS blog explained. "Leon has been prepared to allow a wider scope for detention than most of his District Court colleagues; their views on the issue must now yield. Conceivably, the practical result may be that fewer detainees can now win court orders for their release. While the government has not appealed to the Circuit Court all of the prior release orders, it presumably has a free hand now to contest almost any such order."

In the ruling, the court opined: “The legal issues presented by our nation’s fight with this enemy have been numerous, difficult, and to a large extent novel. What drives these issues is the unconventional nature of our enemy: they are neither soldiers nor mere criminals, claim no national affiliation, and adopt long-term strategies and asymmetric tactics that exploit the rules of open societies without respect or reciprocity.

"War is a challenge to law, and the law must adjust. It must recognize that the old wineskins of international law, domestic criminal procedure, or other prior frameworks are ill-suited to the bitter wine of this new warfare. We can no longer afford diffidence. This war has placed us not just at, but already past the leading edge of a new and frightening paradigm, one that demands new rules be written. Falling back on the comfort of prior practices supplies only illusory comfort."

"So, if you're not an American, be careful whom you cook for overseas," concluded an analysis at TalkLeft. "What if you cater an affair that is being sponsored by a group that is associated with or supports the goals of one of our enemies and there are firearms at the event? Is that enough to authorize your transport halfway across the world to be held for years in indefinite detention at Gitmo? Using a lesser standard of proof than an American would receive, possibly even 'reasonable belief', it just might be."

Read the court's full opinion (PDF link).

This article first appeared on the Raw Story.