Obama admin. to end use of term 'enemy combatant'

YahooNews ^ | 03/13/09 | YahooNews

[ex-snook]

Why didn’t Bush use Prisoner of War?

[bubman]

How about simply calling them SKB’s so we can dispense with the liberal semantics. Shoot Kill Bury! The military loves acronyms. There. No need for Guantanamo. Problem solved!!

[Diogenesis]

FOH = "Friends of Hussein"?

[SunTzuWu]

IMHO, one of Bush’s biggest mistakes was not asking for an official declaration of war.

Declared war against whom? The problem with the captured terrorists was that they weren't representing any one country.

[Norman Bates]

Al-Quaeda and the Taliban regime.

[TigersEye]

The United States declared war on the Barbary pirates. They didn’t represent any one country.

[AH_LiveRight]

They didn’t represent any one country.

So the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia is not any one country?

[SunTzuWu]

I could be wrong but declaring war has legal meaning and is meant to be used against a country with an organized and controlling government. You don’t declare war on “those guys over yonder.” Declaring war wouldn’t change anything substantial about the way we conducted the conflict.

[TigersEye]

Saudi Arabia wasn’t one of the Barbary states of North Africa so that’s a non-sequitur.

[GOYAKLA]

The shame of Barraaaaaack is he treats terrorists better than the PM of Britain!

[TigersEye]

Then I guess you use a AUMF and you can use military force against a broadly defined but specifically unnamed enemy.

Authorization for Use of Military Force

(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Since it is accomplished with a Joint Resolution of both houses of Congress it's kind of a nit-picking semantic argument to say it isn't an official formal declaration of war. The Constitution doesn't say one word about how an "official formal Declaration of War" should be worded. It simply says "Congress shall have power to ... declare War." The phrase "Declaration of War" doesn't appear anywhere in the Constitution. It is a journalistic or literary term of art not a legal one.

[hedgetrimmer]

They’ll also be called ‘nontraditional belief system boys’

[Norman Bates]

Ok. But I don’t care for the habit of “late” (since WWII) of having NEVER declared war on an enemy. Korea, Vietnam, Gulf Wars I & II, Afghanistan - none were declared.

[AH_LiveRight]

My point is clear: we should have declared war on the KSA. It was a Saudi national that planned it, and 17 Saudi nationals participated. Then all of the Bush-bots and Neocons bought the bogey-man AQ thing.
I do concede that the Barbary Marque and Reprisal actions would have allowed the Congress a precedent. But since the initial strikes on the US were done in the name of the “Palestinians”; our Arabist and Wahhabi loving elected officials will never act. Remember ABSCAM? I do.

[TigersEye]

I don't see anything clear in your thinking at all. Some nobody individuals from the KSA committed a terrorist act and you think it makes sense to declare war on the KSA? And AQ, the organization that planned and executed 9/11 (and numerous other terrorist attacks), is nothing but a bogeyman?

So, going by your logic, since the VT shooter was Korean we should have declared war on Korea!?!

[AH_LiveRight]

The actors on 9/11 were NOT “nobody individuals”. They all had the explicit and implicit support of factions within the Saudi government.

Cho was a common criminal with no support from the Korean government.

[TigersEye]

The actors on 9/11 were NOT “nobody individuals”. They all had the explicit and implicit support of factions within the Saudi government.

That is the first time I have ever heard that claim. Show a citation giving evidence of that.

[AH_LiveRight]

“During the expansion of the Two Holy Mosques in the 80s, King Fahd himself personally offered Bin Ladin the contract of expanding the Prophet’s (SAW) mosque in Madinah. This deal would be worth a net profit of $90m to Bin Ladin. Bin Ladin refused the offer, knowing that it was done to distract him from the Jihad in Afghanistan and content him with the building of a mosque. He is quoted as saying that his wealth increased and his business grew with the amount of money he spent on the Jihad.

Bin Ladin returned home to discover that he had become a celebrity. But his star appeal swiftly faded when he began denouncing the Saudi regime. The government had already come under criticism from Muslim activists for its corruption and its failure to implement Shariah (Islamic Law). All these failings offended Bin Ladin. But the real apostacy was King Fahd’s decision to allow Western troops into the Kingdom during the Gulf War. After publicly criticising the regime and becoming the target of a harassment campaign, he fled to Sudan in 1991. A sizable contingent of “Afghan Arabs” Arabs from various countries who fought in Afghanistan followed him and found work with his companies.”

http://www.daveross.com/binladen.html

[Finny]

Clinging to Religion, gun nuts with assault rifles.

And a big jar of beer nuts always within reach.

*aaacch* (Too much "Willy n Ethel")