Posted on 10/10/2008 7:26:46 AM PDT by bobsunshine
Even as the anti-antiterror lobby cheers as the courts attack the Bush Administration's wartime legal architecture, the practical results are starting to emerge. It is increasingly possible that many enemy combatants will be set free -- in the U.S.
On Tuesday, D.C. District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered that 17 foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay be transferred to the U.S. and released. Judge Urbina relied on the Supreme Court's June Boumediene decision, which extended the Constitutional right of habeas corpus to aliens captured abroad and incarcerated outside the U.S. Had an appeals court not granted an emergency stay, the men would have been let go today.
In some ways this case is unique, though that does not make Judge Urbina's decision -- and the precedent it sets -- any less dangerous. The 17 men are Uighurs, ethnic Chinese Muslims, some of whom received weapons training at Afghan camps affiliated with al Qaeda or the Taliban. They were captured near Tora Bora in 2002 and have since been cleared for release, as they do not pose security threats to the U.S.
They exist in a legal netherworld, however, because no one will accept custody. The U.S. will not repatriate the Uighurs to China, where they are considered separatists and are likely to be imprisoned, or worse. Five were released to Albania in 2006, but the State Department has not been able to persuade other countries, which fear reprisals from Beijing, to take in the rest. While their situation is unfortunate, the choice is between continuing to hold them at Gitmo in special housing or releasing them here.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
—for the “you can’t make this stuff up” file——
They should all bunk with Kennedy!
If the judge feels these terrorist should be walking around loose and are not a threat, then they should have them in his home!
I suppose throwing them over the fence to Cuba is out of the question?
They and the judge who wants to let them loose MUST be sent to China to resolve the outstanding issues.
turn ‘em loose on K street
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