The Next Guantánamo

[bigtree]

April 12, 2009

{snip}

Bagram differs from Guantánamo in that it is located in an active theater of war. Historically, habeas corpus has not extended to detainees held abroad in zones of combat. But the evidence suggests it was the prospect that Guantánamo detentions might be subject to judicial oversight that caused the military to divert captives to Bagram instead.

The theater of war excuse for denying judicial review, the judge found, is unpersuasive when the government imports detainees from elsewhere. “It is one thing to detain those captured on the surrounding battlefield at a place like Bagram,” Judge Bates wrote. “It is quite another thing to apprehend people in foreign countries — far from any Afghan battlefield — and then bring them to a theater of war, where the Constitution arguably may not reach.”

Although Judge Bates’s ruling addresses only 30 of 600 or so prisoners, he found that the process for determining whether a person has been properly labeled an “enemy combatant” even “less sophisticated and more error-prone” than the process the Supreme Court deemed inadequate at Guantánamo. This points to a wider due process problem affecting everyone now held at Bagram.

In the absence of a fair review process that complies with international and military law, there is no reason to feel confident that everyone detained at Bagram deserves to be there. The administration should focus on putting such a process in place, instead of wasting its energies in an appeal that simply recycles extravagant claims of executive power and perpetuates the detention policies of the Bush administration.


editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/opinion/13mon1.html?_r=1&hpw=&pagewanted=print



(here's something for folks waiting before judging)

[mmonk]

1. Bagram is a hell hole. It's also something average Americans

are unfamiliar with.