Free Republic

A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer argued Monday that the United States can kill its own citizens without judicial review when litigation would reveal state secrets. The argument drew alarm among judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Courthouse News Service reports. Judge Patricia Millett characterized the DOJ’s argument as giving the government the ability to “unilaterally decide to kill U.S. citizens,” according to coverage of the argument by Courthouse News Service. “Do you appreciate how extraordinary that proposition is?” The government’s brief in the case supplies details of the lawsuit. The plaintiff, Bilal...

What happens when the president who has politicized law-enforcement to a degree unprecedented in American history meets a terrorist responsible for killing Americans he has recklessly failed to protect, decimating his pretensions about “decimating” al-Qaeda? What happens is: You get the most politicized terrorism indictment ever produced by the Justice Department. Behold United States v. Khatallah, Case No. 14 Crim. 141, quietly unsealed in a Washington courtroom last Saturday while the country dozed off into summer-vacation mode. Ahmed Abu Khatallah, of course, is the only suspect apprehended in connection with the Benghazi massacre, a terrorist attack on a still-mysterious U.S....

White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Wednesday that an alleged draft executive order titled “Detention and Interrogation of Enemy Combatants” “is not a White House document.” “I have no idea where it came from,” stressed Spicer. Various mainstream media outlets, including the New York Times (NYT) and the Washington Post (WaPo), published the contents of this document, suggesting it was a legitimate draft from White House officials.

A Republican sends over this video of the State Department press briefing today, in which Assistant Secretary P.J. Crowley calls Gitmo detainees "refugees" at about the 24-minute mark. QUESTION: Talk to us a little bit about response and talks and any commitments that you may have gotten from our European and other friends in the international community about taking in Guantanamo detainees as the camp in Guantanamo is expected to close at some point in the near future. Have you gotten any commitments from our European friends and anybody else? CROWLEY: Ambassador Dan Fried continues his efforts to resettle, you...

Guantanamo Detainees Said Plotting Sun Jan 27, 9:08 AM ET By TONY WINTON, Associated Press Writer GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - Military guards at a detention camp at Guantanamo Bay say they have noticed a command structure emerging among the terrorist suspects being held there, camp leaders said Saturday. The leaders seem to surface during prayer sessions. Photos AP Photo Slideshows AP Photo Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Of the evolving leadership structure, Brig. Gen. Mike Lehnert said, "We have indications that many have received training, and that they are observing actions such as security procedures." Lehnert, a ...

U.N.'s Robinson: Cuba Detainees Are Prisoners of War Jan. 16 GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. human rights chief Mary Robinson said Wednesday the 50 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters being held at a U.S. Navy base in Cuba were prisoners of war and entitled to the protection of international law. Robinson said most legal experts disagreed with Washington's view that the fighters were "illegal combatants" and therefore not protected by the Geneva Conventions on prisoners rights. "The situation is complex (but) ... the overwhelming view of legal opinion is that they were combatants in an international armed conflict," the United Nations ...

The Rules of War Can't Protect Al Qaeda By RUTH WEDGWOOD NEW HAVEN — It makes no sense to win a trial but lose the war. With this in mind, a majority of the American public favors giving President Bush the option to use military tribunals against the Qaeda terror network. The tribunals are designed to permit a "full and fair trial" of war crimes without compromising our ability to track the network's future plans. Al Qaeda's skill at countersurveillance has made plain the need to protect sensitive intelligence sources at trial. But some international-law scholars suggest that President Bush's ...

FOR THE WHOLE TRANSCRIPT GO HERE DoD News Briefing - Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Pace Q: Mr. Secretary, two points. Why not call them prisoners of war? And you're indicating that that's just some legal debate, which is up there. Are you not concerned that this could come back and somehow haunt the United States in potential future treatment of American soldiers who are taken in whatever kind of conditions, so that some future entity could say to the U.S., "You didn't abide by the Geneva Convention on this. You didn't call them prisoners of war. Why should we?" Rumsfeld: ...

War in Afghanistan More captured fighters flown to Cuba amid US indifference to concern about their status The US pressed ahead yesterday with its controversial policy of flying al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners from Afghanistan to a US naval compound at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Another 30 detainees boarded a transport plane bound for the island last night. Guarded by American troops with attack dogs, the men, shackled and wearing taped-over ski goggles, shuffled in the darkness into a C-17 plane at Kandahar airport. They wore surgical masks over their mouths and noses, because some had tested positive for tuberculosis, a military ...

An American military legal adviser told helicopter crew that Iraqi men were valid targets as they could not surrender to aircraft, the documents show. The Apache helicopter killed the two insurgents after being told that they were still legitimate targets even although they were offering to lay down their arms.

A former CIA officer tells Fox News its ridiculous that the Bush administration didn't execute numerous prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, regardless of whether they have had a trial, when it had the chance.

In the latest effort to deconstruct and destroy the United States, the Supreme Court has decided that a foreign terrorist captured on foreign territory trying to kill Americans has just as many constitutional rights as a Wal-Mart shoplifter. The liberals think this is a good thing. That's because they're America-hating idiots. Sorry, Obama, but if the shoe fits, cram it up your backside. In the liberal world view, where the war against terror is no larger than Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, the United States military is a collection of war criminals and puppy killers. Guantanamo Bay – where jihadist murderers...

For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary February 14, 2007 Executive Order Trial of Alien Unlawful Enemy Combatants by Military Commission By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (Public Law 109‑366), the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40), and section 948b(b) of title 10, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Establishment of Military Commissions. There are hereby established military commissions to try alien unlawful enemy combatants for offenses triable by...

SANCTUARY (part 1) (If you're new here, welcome. The regulars usually grab some coffee and relax. This will take about an hour, and, as usual, the end point of our journey is not visible from the beginning.) What’s worse than crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage? NOT crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage. I’ve been away for a while, doing a little thinking. Usually, my thoughts for these past few years have started at home and then taken me to Iraq, and...

What’s worse than crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage? NOT crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage. I’ve been away for a while, doing a little thinking. Usually, my thoughts for these past few years have started at home and then taken me to Iraq, and the war. Lately, though, I have been thinking about Iraq, and my thoughts turn more and more to home. I started thinking along these lines six months ago, after a young Marine shot and killed a wounded...

What’s worse than crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage? NOT crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage. I’ve been away for a while, doing a little thinking. Usually, my thoughts for these past few years have started at home and then taken me to Iraq, and the war. Lately, though, I have been thinking about Iraq, and my thoughts turn more and more to home. I started thinking along these lines six months ago, after a young Marine shot and killed a wounded...

SANCTUARY (part 1) (If you're new here, welcome. The regulars usually grab some coffee and relax. This will take about an hour, and, as usual, the end point of our journey is not visible from the beginning.) What’s worse than crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage? NOT crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage. I’ve been away for a while, doing a little thinking. Usually, my thoughts for these past few years have started at home and then taken me to Iraq, and...

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- The nomination of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales to become the next U.S. attorney general continues to draw scrutiny from Democrats and members of the media. At Tuesday's White House press briefing, Press Secretary Scott McClellan was asked why the White House hasn't released opinions drafted by Gonzales regarding detainees in the war on terror. A reporter questioned McClellan on a statement issued on Tuesday by a group of former officers which called on the White House "to release documents regarding the decisions that Mr. Gonzales has made in his role as legal counsel of the...

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry! On Thursday, May 6, Pres. Bush publicly apologized to Jordan’s King Abdullah II for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. I wasn’t aware that Abdullah was the king of Iraq. Apparently, when America screws up, our leader must apologize to any and every Moslem in the world, to people who exuberantly support torture, as long as it is carried out by Moslems. I must have missed King Abdullah II’s apology for the butchering of four American civilians in Falluja. King Abdullah is a “moderate, pro-U.S.” Arab, which means that his statements in support of genocidal...

Scroll down the list of sobriquet-worthy terror suspects captured by the United States in recent months, and you will find no clear legal pattern. John Walker Lindh (the "American Taliban"), Richard Reid (the "shoe bomber") and Zacarias Moussaoui (the "20th hijacker") have all been charged with federal crimes. But another suspect, Jose Padilla (the "dirty bomber"), has instead been designated an "unlawful combatant," and is holed up in a military brig. Ditto the second "American Taliban," Yasser Hamdi. Whatever one thinks of the war on terrorism, it is legitimate to be concerned by these seemingly arbitrary classifications. Mr. Hamdi and...