Free Republic

I missed tonight’s CBS debate, mainly because I spent a great evening with some of my blogging friends here at FreedomWorks’ BlogCon2011. When I returned, though, I got a few messages about one particular moment in the debate, where CBS moderator attempted to lecture Newt Gingrich on the “rule of law” regarding American citizens who join the enemy to wage war against the US. Big mistake. The two worst aspects of this exchange? The smug look on Pelley’s face when he challenged Gingrich on this point, and the “no” you can hear him utter just as Gingrich started his smackdown...

A major question is swirling around the 13 US service personnel who were killed, and the 30 who were wounded in the Ft. Hood shooting in November. Central Texas Congressman John Carter (R-Tx), who represents Ft. Hood and Killeen, is introducing a measure in Congress to award the 43 victims of the shooting by Maj. Nadal Hasan the Purple Heart, and the benefits which come from being awarded the decoration. “All these things are already given to soldiers who are killed or injured in combat,” Carter said, “And I think they should be extended to those soldiers who were killed...

War On Terror: The Justice Department employs nine lawyers previously involved in the defense of terrorist detainees. This is a colossal conflict of interest. Just whose side are they on? From the dropping of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party to the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed in a civilian court within blocks of where the World Trade Center once stood, the actions and attitudes of the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder toward the thugs and terrorists who threaten us has grown curiouser and curiouser. We may now have a clue as...

This past week gave us an interesting insight in how the Obama Administration is politicizing terror; ironically, something they accused the Bush Administration of regularly during the campaign. This week, the intelligence services told the White House and Congress that Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmuttallab is now speaking to interrogators...a full 5 weeks after his initial arrest. The information was given to Congress in closed door meetings. However, the White House, primarily their political and communication wings (led by Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod), immediately went on the attack in public forums, exclaiming how well their strategy worked in obtaining...

Holder's decision to Mirandize the Christmas bomber was bad enough. Telling the world he was talking again waseven worse Security: The administration says the Christmas bomber is now cooperating with authorities. We thought they got all the information he had in a 50-minute chat. So just why are we letting our enemies know he's talking? In any war, it's vitally important that you know what your enemy is planning and doing, just as it's important that your actions and plans remain secret. And when you know about your enemy's plans it's important they don't know that you know. We were...

President Barack Obama's nationality scandal is gathering speed and refusing to go away now that Congress has got involved. There have been rumbles of unrest around the world regarding Obama's nationality since the day he stated he would run for the presidency. Now, after more than a year as president of the USA, the rumbles have turned into a full on eruption. The Barack Obama nationality scandal is refusing to burn itself out and seems to be gathering even more speed with Congressman Nathan Deal questioning the eligibility of Obama to hold the presidency. This is the first time in...

Chris Cuomo says there's no proof Mutallab will talk less as a lawyered-up criminal defendant than as an enemy combatant. Suggestions to the contrary are just politics. George Stephanopolous manifests the same problem his old boss did: he doesn't know what the meaning of "is," is. Steph claims Mutallab "is" singing. But reports are that the would-be mass-murderer was singing—but isn't any more. It was all part of Good Morning America's defense today of Pres. Obama's decision to give the NWA 253 bomber the full ACLU treatment, rather than dealing with him as the enemy combatant he is. Fortunately, Rudy...

Six critical reasons to never try those who wage Jihad terror against America, or any other irregular enemy combatant, in any U.S. civilian criminal court: It extends American juris prudence rights and procedure to enemy combatant irregulars who, according to the Geneva convention, don't deserve prisoner of war status and deserve, according to the same, to be executed after a military tribunal. It offers a very real prospect because of venue, how testimony was obtained, miranda readings to someone who deserves none, etc., etc. that terrorists will get either reduced sentences or be aquitted. As a result of giving testimony...

In a surprising ruling, a federal judge has determined that convicted terrorist, Jose Padilla, can sue former Department of Justice lawyer, John Yoo, over Yoo’s legal opinion that led to Padilla being held as an enemy combatant. US District Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Northern District of California based in San Francisco, denied a Department of Justice motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Padilla’s lawyers contend that Yoo’s legal opinions allowed the US military to detain Padilla as an enemy combatant which led to Padilla being subjected to torture. As reported by local TV station KTVU: The lawsuit alleges the...

"With regard to those who you would describe as terrorists, we would not bring them into this country and release them, anyone we would consider to be a terrorist," Holder said. He added the government has no plans to release anyone considered a terrorist in a foreign country, either.

Nearly six years ago, President George W. Bush declared Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri an enemy combatant and had him swept out of federal court and into a U.S. Navy brig so he could be interrogated without the legal protections afforded by the criminal justice system. Bush said the Qatari national, arrested as a material witness in Illinois in December 2001, possessed critical intelligence that "would aid U.S. efforts to prevent attacks by al-Qaeda on the United States." In an agreement Marri entered Thursday in Peoria, Ill., he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda and admitted to...

Barack Obama is considering retaining a modified version of the Bush-era military trials for al-Qaeda suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, in what would be the biggest about turn of his presidency so far. The decision would effectively show his government has been unable to find another way of prosecuting detainees regarded as too dangerous to be freed, who include five men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks. It also raises the possibility that Mr Obama may also have to keep the controversial prison open in some guise for longer than planned as reforms would require new legislation and cause further...

Andrew Breitbart is interviewed by Sean Hannity and in the interview he stated “While everybody’s worried about the banks and the economy, I’m worried about what’s happening to people out there who dissent from Barack Obama.” Hannity said “According to this administration we can no longer say Enemy Combatant, we can’t use the term War on Terror or even Terrorism itself.” Unlike Homeland Security Secretary Janete Napolitano, Brigitte Gabriel is a woman who can and does call our enemies by the names that she believes accurately describes them, such as Radical Islam, Islamic Extremism, Islamism, and Islamofascism.

Some analysts are claiming that this abandonment (dare I say it, 'cutting and running') from the term, "enemy combatant" has practical consequences; others say it's basically window dressing from a president who will outwardly make a cosmetic change to damn the Bush administration only to more or less continue the same policies. I don't claim to know who is more correct. But I am gravely concerned about the direction in which we seem to be headed. And I have reason to believe that Obama's decision to change his terminology will lead to deeper, more fundamental consequences, as a Wall Street...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration stopped calling Guantanamo inmates "enemy combatants" on Friday and incorporated international law as its basis for holding the prisoners while it works to close the facility. The U.S. Justice Department filed court papers outlining a further legal and linguistic shift from the anti-terrorism policies of Republican President George W. Bush, which drew worldwide condemnation as violations of human rights and international law. "As we work toward developing a new policy to govern detainees, it is essential that we operate in a manner that strengthens our national security, is consistent with our values, and is...

Tawfik Hamid, onetime protégé of Ayman Zawahiri, writes the following: The real way to strengthen moderate Muslims in their fight against the radicals is to spotlight radical teachings and flush out those who believe in them. ....This is especially true in war: define your enemy correctly, and you will rally legitimate allies to your side. Blur what a battle is about and, stuck in the muddle, you are bound to lose.... Calling angina a "common cold" does not change its nature. It only prevents us from taking the necessary steps in treating it, which will only lead to further sickness,...

Although Obama refuses to describe enemy combatants as “enemy combatants”, he has reserved the right to detain enemy combatants without charging them in the American judicial system. Liberals who figured out what Obama is up to are not happy. They call the move symbolic with good reason. On the issue of enemy combatants, Obama is essentially doing the same thing as President Bush. He’s just calling it something else.

When our national and international news outlets, awash in mind-numbing political correctness, decide to not use certain terms (you know, because someone might get offended), it really does only thing: avoid the truth. This is what happens when newspapers use “militants” to describe “terrorist,” for instance. But it’s more dangerous when PC-induced stupidity infects our own president. With every day, I become more and more convinced that President Golden Calf is frighteningly ill-equipped to protect this country from the scum out there planning to attack us. Yesterday, Obama has decided to drop the term “enemy combatant” from the glossary in...

Breaking NewsThe Department of Justice says it has dropped the designation of "enemy combatant" for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. nothing follows as of yet

There are no enemies. There are only friends we haven’t made yet. A fine alternative term via Twitter: “Undocumented protagonists.”

The Obama administration today showed once again that the change they seek is one of style over substance, and terminology over practice: Obama admin. to end use of term 'enemy combatant' The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush's key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Obama still asserts the military's authority to hold detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. But his Justice Department says that authority comes from Congress and...

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush's key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant. In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Mr. Obama still asserts the military's authority to hold detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. But his Justice Department says that authority comes from Congress and the international laws of war, not from the president's own wartime power as Bush had argued. The Obama administration's position came in response to a deadline by U.S....

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush's key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Obama still asserts the military's authority to hold detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. But his Justice Department says that authority comes from Congress and the international laws of war, not from the president's own wartime power as Bush had argued. The Obama administration's position came in response to a deadline by U.S. District...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Supreme Court refused to weigh in Friday on whether US presidents have the authority to indefinitely detain a terrorist suspect in the United States without charges. But it sent the issue back for a new hearing before the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, which ruled in July that former president George W. Bush had that power in the case of Ali al-Marri, an alleged Al-Qaeda sleeper agent. The high court's action effectively delayed resolution of an issue that, while different, could have implications for the estimated 245 "enemy combatants" still being held by the...

A military judge has refused the Obama administration's request to delay proceeding for 120 days in the case of a detainee held at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who is accused of planning the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole warship, an al-Qaeda strike that killed 17 service members and injured 50 others. The decision throws into some disarray the administration's plan to buy some time as it reviews individual detainee cases as part of its plan to close the prison. The Pentagon may now be forced to withdraw the charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President Barack Obama on Thursday signed an executive order asking the Supreme Court to delay a review of the case of Qatari national Ali al-Marri, the only "enemy combatant" detained on US soil. "You have a legal resident (of the United States) who has been detained; he is clearly a dangerous individual," Obama told reporters as he signed an executive order pertaining directly to al-Marri's case. "His case is currently before the Supreme Court. We have asked for a delay in ... going before the Supreme Court in dealing with this case, so that we...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- Military judges on Wednesday will consider motions by the Obama administration to suspend the Guantanamo war crimes trials for 120 days during a review of the system for prosecuting suspected terrorists. The motions, filed late Tuesday at the direction of President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, will be heard in the cases of five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks and of Canadian Omar Khadr, who is accused of killing an American soldier with a grenade in Afghanistan in 2002.... snip ...Relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, who were...

ABC News' Luis Martinez reports: CIA Director Michael Hayden offered a spirited defense of the agency's controversial detention and interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, which Attorney General nominee Eric Holder characterized today as "torture." Hayden said the techniques provided extremely useful information about al Qaeda and have led to repeated successes against the terror network. "You can't say it didn't work. It worked," Hayden said in a wide-ranging farewell interview with reporters at the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Va.

Reporting from Washington -- Human rights advocates are urging the incoming Obama administration to allow some detainees from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to resettle as U.S. residents as part of any plan to close the controversial facility. Taking such a step would go beyond plans outlined so far to close the prison and transfer detainees to other countries or to military prisons on the U.S. mainland. But allowing a small number -- perhaps only two or three -- to live freely in the U.S. could help persuade other countries to accept some of them as well. "If we...

A 21-year-old citizen of Chad who has been held for seven years at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba must be released, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said the government had not proven that Mohammed el Gharani was an enemy combatant and the detainee must be freed and sent home soon either to Saudi Arabia, where he was raised and his family lives, or Chad. Leon's ruling comes just before President-elect Barack Obama, who has vowed to close the prison camp, takes office on Tuesday. Since Obama's election in November, federal...

Just a month after President-elect Barack Obama takes office, he must tell the Supreme Court where he stands on one of the most aggressive legal claims made by the Bush administration — that the president may order the military to seize legal residents of the United States and hold them indefinitely without charging them with a crime. The new administration’s brief, which is due Feb. 20, has the potential to hearten or infuriate Mr. Obama’s supporters, many of whom are looking to him for stark disavowals of the Bush administration’s legal positions on the detention and interrogation of so-called enemy...

Guantánamo detainees would be entitled to £42 a week and NHS treatment Richard Ford, Home Correspondent It is little wonder that the prospect of Britain taking even a handful of the terror suspects being held in Guantánamo Bay is being described in Whitehall as a hot potato. Several departments must address issues ranging from any potential security risk the detainees pose to the immigration status under which they enter Britain, the housing and other benefits they can receive, and the inevitable public backlash. How people react to foreign terror suspects being given sanctuary in Britain with accommodation, weekly cash benefits...

Deal will help Obama to close down terror jail Britain is preparing to receive foreign terror suspects from Guantánamo Bay so that Barack Obama can shut it down, The Times has learnt. Government sources say that Britain now supports moves to rehouse the detainees, despite previous refusals to help President Bush. A Downing Street official said that a process to deal with the detainees was being put in place and that decisions “would be for the Home Secretary to decide on a case-by-case basis”. The issue is the subject of intense negotiations within Whitehall. The Foreign Office appears much keener...

American Civil Rights Union TheACRU.org As usual, the ACLU misreads the Constitution, and sides with those who would attack America and murder Americans, instead of following the Constitution and protecting Americans and America. The latest example is the ACLU promotion of the interests of an Al Qaeda representative in the US. The facts for this article, but not all of the legal conclusions, come from an article in the Los Angeles Times on 5 December, 2008. It concerns an apparent representative of Al Qaeda in the US, who is also a legal resident in the US. On 5 December, the...

In case anyone missed it, confessed 9/11 conspirator Ramzi bin al Shibh reminded those watching Monday's hearing that it fell on a major Muslim holy day. And he did it with a grisly salute to his spiritual leader -- al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, still at-large. Bin al Shibh, a Yemeni, blurted out his well wishes ''to the entire Muslim world,'' in honor of Eid al Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice -- and especially to ``Osama bin Laden, may God protect him.'' ''I hope the jihad continues and strikes the heart of America with all kinds of weapons...

The human rights crowd is right: Life is hard for a Guantanamo Bay detainee. The deprivation is unspeakable. According to the facility's "cultural adviser," their brains have not been "stimulated" enough. So this Thanksgiving, America has drawn up plans to provide the 250 or so suspected jihadists at the "notoriously Spartan" detention camp with basic sustenance including, as reported by the Miami Herald, movie nights, art classes, English language lessons and "Game Boy-like" electronic devices. Next up: Wii Fit, Guitar Hero, Sudoku, People magazine and macrame. Anything less would be uncivilized. On a deadly serious note, the detainees aren't the...

A jury of six U.S. military officers sentenced Hamdan at Guantanamo's first war-crimes trial earlier this year, and at the time he had already served five years and a month at the Cuba facility. Pentagon officials had suggested all along that they could hold the 40-year-old Guantanamo prisoner indefinitely regardless of the sentence. The Pentagon reserves the right to hold him and other "enemy combatants" who are considered dangerous to the United States, even those who are acquitted or complete sentences in the tribunal system.

Detention camp staff at the US Navy base in Cuba are already teaching English to the 255 inmates despite fears that it might allow them to eavesdrop on their guards. Barack Obama, the US president-elect, has promised to close the camp, which was set up to hold foreign terrorism suspects captured after the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. However, convinced that such a decision is a long way from being carried out, camp staff are attempting to soften the notoriously Spartan existence of Guantanamo inmates. "We want to keep their brains stimulated. We're not here to give degrees," Zak,...

OSAMA bin Laden's former driver Salim Hamdan will be transferred out of Guantanamo Bay to Yemen, CNN has reported citing unnamed US sources. A jury of six US military officers at a Guantanamo terrorism trial in August sentenced Hamdan to five years and six months in prison for supporting terrorism - which taking into account time served, amounted to only an additional five months. The Pentagon refused to confirm the report. "In general we don't talk about transfers until they are completed," Pentagon spokesman Mark Ballesteros said. Hamdan, a native of Yemen and about 40 years old, was picked up...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- A federal judge on Monday refused to block the military trial of a Canadian held at Guantanamo Bay and charged with killing a U.S. soldier while still a juvenile. Omar Khadr, of Toronto, was 15 when he allegedly killed Delta Force soldier Chris Speer of Albuquerque, New Mexico, with a grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002. The son of an al-Qaida figure, Khadr was seriously wounded in the battle and has been held with the adult population at Guantanamo Bay since being transferred there in 2002. Khadr argued in pleadings in U.S. District Court that...

That was the view of Eric Holder, Oama's choice for Attorney General, in a CNN interview in 2002 (as recalled by the WSJ today): One of the things we clearly want to do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find out what their future plans might be, where other cells are located; under the Geneva Convention that you are really limited in the amount of information that you can elicit from people. It seems to me that given the way in which they have conducted themselves, however, that they are not, in fact, people...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- A U.S. military judge has blocked Pentagon prosecutors from using a Guantanamo prisoner's statements to U.S. authorities as trial evidence, saying they were tainted by an earlier confession tortured out of the suspect by Afghan officials. Mohammed Jawad's confession to U.S. authorities in Afghanistan following his capture in 2002 was the last incriminating statement available to prosecutors for the Afghan's war-crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay, his military defense attorney, Air Force Maj. David Frakt, said Thursday. Wednesday's dismissal of Jawad's confession in U.S. custody decimates the government's case against the Afghan prisoner at Guantanamo...

WASHINGTON — DEVELOPING STORY: A federal judge ordered the release of five terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay prison for seven years without charges.

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- A federal judge has ordered the release of five Algerian terror suspects who have been held without charges almost seven years at Guantanamo Bay. In the first civilian court ruling for terror suspects challenging their detention, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said Thursday that the five men could not be held indefinitely as enemy combatants.

PHOENIX, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- Muslim leaders in Arizona have drawn increased scrutiny from federal officials in the past year because of a string of suspicious incidents, officials say. Although no one in the state has been accused of supporting terrorists, one Mesa, Ariz., man was charged with lying to the FBI during the terror financing investigation into a Muslim charity accused of funneling money to the Palestinian group Hamas, The Arizona Republic reported Sunday. Also drawing attention to Arizona Muslims was a target-shooting episode in Phoenix that involved a large group of Muslim men and boys firing hundreds of...

A 39-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of arson near Malibu Creek State Park, a sheriff's deputy said Sunday. Suren Sahakyan was booked on suspicion of arson at the sheriff's Lost Hills Station and held in lieu of $75,000 bail, said Deputy Byron Ward of the Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau. An area resident saw the man on shoulder of Stokes Canyon Road near Mulholland Highway, starting a fire using paper and leaves about 5:20 p.m. Saturday, Ward said. The resident stomped out the fire, and Sahakyan fled but was caught by sheriff's deputies a short distance away.

DEVELOPING: A military jury has convicted a man who was accused of being an aide of Usama bin Laden and making propaganda videos for Al Qaeda in the second Guantanamo war crimes trial. A jury of officers announced the verdict Monday at the U.S. base in Cuba.

A federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to release 17 detainees at Guantánamo by the end of the week, the first such ruling in nearly seven years of legal disputes over the administration's detention policies. The judge, Ricardo Urbina of U.S. District Court, ordered Tuesday that the 17 men be brought to his courtroom Friday from Guantánamo, where they have been held since 2002. He indicated that he would release the men, members of the restive Uighur Muslim minority of western China, into the care of supporters in the United States, initially in the Washington area. "I think the...

Federal Judge Release Gitmo Detainees into U.S.by Kenneth Hanner (more by this author) Posted 10/07/2008 ET Updated 10/07/2008 ET A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the release of several Chinese Muslim detainees from Guantanamo Bay into the United States. The men all are ethnic Uighurs and come from a region of China that borders Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Chinese government considers them terrorists and the U.S. has refused to return them to their home country due to fears they will be persecuted. The men were detained by the U.S. since their capture in 2001. In 2004, their status as enemy...

US judge orders Chinese Muslims at Guantanamo freed 07 Oct 2008 16:40:00 GMT Source: Reuters WASHINGTON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the release in the United States of 17 Chinese Muslims who have been held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, a landmark ruling that dealt a major setback to the Bush administration. U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina read his ruling from the bench at a hearing to consider the appeals by the members of the Uighur ethnic group, who are seeking their release from the military prison and and asking to come...