Indefinite detentions overseas become Obama administration's dilemma

U.S. citizens who thought last year's change at the top meant a return to the days before al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington got another reality check Friday when a federal appeals court in Washington ruled that terror suspects captured overseas may not challenge their detentions in U.S. courts. The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel means that three detainees held for years without trial at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan did not have the same right of appeal that suspects being held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, won in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2008, according to the New York Times. The ruling reversed a trial judge's decision that the Bagram detainees -- in this case, two men from Yemen and one from Tunisia who claimed they were captured outside Afghanistan and brought to the U.S. base -- had the same rights as prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. Critics and supporters of the Bush administration's aggressive post-9/11 detention policies, which Obama criticized while campaigning but has defended in court, reacted to the ruling with expected vehemence. A lawyer for the detainees, Tina Foster of the New York-based International Justice Network, said the appeals court ruling would allow U.S. presidents to “kidnap people from other parts of the world and lock them away for the rest of their lives” without ever having to prove that they were guilty of anything, the Times said. “The thing that is most disappointing for those of us who have been in the fight for this long is all of the people who used to be opposed to the idea of unlimited executive power during the Bush administration but now seem to have embraced it during this administration,” she said. “We have to remember that Obama is not the last president of the United States.” But U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), a backer of the Bush-era detentions, told the Times that the ruling was a "big win" for the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. “Allowing a noncitizen enemy combatant detained in a combat zone access to American courts would have been a change of historic proportions,” he said. “There is a reason we have never allowed enemy prisoners detained overseas in an active war zone to sue in federal court for their release. It simply makes no sense and would be the ultimate act of turning the war into a crime.” A spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, Dean Boyd, declined to comment on the decision, the Times said. The three prisoners say they are not terrorists and are being held by mistake.

Feds move to drop charges against one Blackwater guard

What does it mean that the U.S. Justice Department wants to dismiss criminal charges against one of five former Blackwater security guards facing multiple manslaughter charges for their roles in a 2007 shooting incident in Baghdad in which 14 civilians were killed? Well, it might mean very little, since the charges would be dropped without prejudice and could be refiled later in the case. More likely, it means that a second guard, Nicholas Slatten of Sparta, Tenn., has agreed to give testimony against the four others who still face charges stemming from the shooting of civilians by a private security company hired by the U.S. military to protect diplomats in Baghdad threatened by unrest in the years following the 2003 invasion. The five former guards pleaded not guilty to 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 attempted manslaughter counts and one weapons violation in January. A sixth Blackwater guard, Jeremy P. Ridgeway, 34, of Fallbrook, Calif., pleaded guilty to fewer charges in 2008 in a deal for his testimony, according to the Reuters international news service. The Nisour Square shooting helped to sour relations between Iraq's elected government and the Bush administration, which had destroyed the former government of Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Subsequent investigation found Hussein's government played no role in the 2001 attacks. The incident prompted Iraq's government to refuse to renew Blackwater's authority to operate there, and the company's military contract was not renewed in May. However, Blackwater guards have continued to operate in Iraq while replacement contractors are being sought. The shooting also reignited a debate over the use of private contractors to fulfill duties traditionally handled by soldiers at substantially lower costs. The motion to dismiss charges against Slatten was filed under seal, and no explanation was offered publicly, Reuters said. "While we never comment on sealed motions, it is a long-standing legal principle that charges against a defendant dismissed without prejudice allow the government to recharge the defendant at a later date if the evidence warrants," said Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman. The shooting happened on Sept. 16, 2007, as guards escorted a diplomatic convoy through a crowded Baghdad intersection, Reuters said.