L'administració Obama ha acabat plegant-se a la realitat i ha acceptat que la lluita contra el terrorisme islamista no és una simple lluita policial sinó una guerra. I per tant, que s'ha de regir per la llei de Conflicte Armat i les convencions de Ginebra. Això vol dir que està permesa la detenció dels combatents sense càrrecs ni judici mentre durin les hostilitats. Aquesta és la filosofia jurídica que va aplicar l'administració Bush i que ara assumeix l'administració Obama. L'única diferència és que ara ningú critica Obama per fer el mateix que Bush.
President Obama's deadline for closing the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay expired 102 days ago, and Attorney General Eric Holder has now admitted that at least 40 detainees will be held indefinitely, without trial.
Enough, already: It's time to rescind the order, rule out any civilian trials -- and explain to the world why holding the detainees at Gitmo is the right thing to do under the Law of Armed Conflict (which subsumes what was long known as the Laws of War).
Obama and Holder have repeatedly acknowledged that America is "at war," as did Congress by invoking the War Powers Resolution by a combined vote of 519-1 on Sept. 18, 2001. And the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that this war is governed by the Law of Armed Conflict -- which permits detention without charge or trial for the duration of hostilities.
Indeed, detaining enemy combatants for the duration of hostilities without charge or trial is a long-recognized and lawful practice. Thus, the United States held more than 400,000 German POWs (and many Italians, too) at detention camps spread across 40-plus states -- without lawyers, charges or trials -- until World War II ended.
Before citing the 1949 Geneva POW Convention, critics should be aware what they actually say. Article 84 states: "A prisoner of war shall be tried only by a military court." And Article 97 says: "Prisoners of war shall not in any case be transferred to penitentiary establishments (prisons, penitentiaries, convict prisons, etc.)."
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