Posted by
Tom L. on Thursday, February 19, 2009 6:00:00 AM
It is not a referendum on the Iraq War, or Gitmo, or even the Bush administration. It is about basic Constitutional law.
According to the Washington Post: “17 Chinese Muslims, all Uighurs, have been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. In October, a federal judge ordered the men released into the United States after the government presented no evidence to justify their detentions.”
“The question here is not whether petitioners should be released, but where,” Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote in an 18-page opinion. “Never in the history of habeas corpus has any court thought it had the power to order an alien held overseas brought into the sovereign territory of a nation and released into the general population.”
What does President Obama do now? He wants to close Gitmo. He is going to have to make a tough decision:
- Say he did not want to release them into the U.S., but the court ruled he had to – Oops, that excuse just went away.
- Release the prisoners from Gitmo into the United States – Certainly, not a popular move with the public.
- Send these prisoners back to China – It is assumed they would be tortured and killed; not a great option for a Democratic liberal President (or any president of the U.S.).
- Get another country to accept them – Probably the best domestic option, but who will take them and risk angering the Chinese who want them in China?
Once again this brings into focus the difference between running for office and being in office.