"Enemy Combatants" and Obama's Gitmo

This online headline from the New York Times is somewhat misleading.

U.S. Won’t Label Terror Suspects as ‘Combatants’

I expected the article to be about how Barack Obama is going squishy on the detainees, enemies of the U.S.

As it turns out, the article details how the Obama administration is fighting to keep detainees at Gitmo.

In fact, Obama is NOT making any fundamental departures from President Bush's detention policies.

The Obama administration said Friday that it would abandon the Bush administration’s term “enemy combatant” as it argues in court for the continued detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in a move that seemed intended to symbolically separate the new administration from Bush detention policies.

So no more "enemy combatants." That label is history.

So what? It doesn't mean much. It's insignificant. There's no change in policy, just a change in terms. Nonetheless, the Times chooses to mislead readers by highlighting the change in terminology, as if it indicates some greater transformation when it doesn't.

But in a much anticipated court filing, the Justice Department argued that the president has the authority to detain terrorism suspects there without criminal charges, much as the Bush administration had asserted. It provided a broad definition of those who can be held, which was not significantly different from the one used by the Bush administration.

The filing signaled that, as long as Guantánamo remains open, the new administration will aggressively defend its ability to hold some detainees there.

“The president has the authority to detain persons” who planned or aided the 2001 terrorist attacks as well as those “who were part of, or substantially supported, Taliban or Al Qaeda forces,” administration lawyers wrote.

The Obama administration said it was relying on existing principles of the international law of war. A public statement indicated that the government was moving away from claims of expansive executive power often used by the Bush administration to justify Guantánamo.

The new administration took pains to try to point out that it was taking a different approach. It said the new definition “does not rely on the president’s authority as commander in chief” beyond the powers authorized by Congress. The filing, in Federal District Court in Washington, was meant to provide a definition of those detainees who can be held and bitterly disappointed critics of Guantánamo, who said it seemed to continue the policies they have criticized for more than seven years.

It was the latest example of the Obama administration’s taking ownership of Guantánamo, even after having announced it would close the prison, where 241 men remain.

“This seems fundamentally consistent with the positions of the prior administration,” said Steven A. Engel, who was a senior lawyer responsible for detainee issues in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel until the final day of the Bush administration.

Mr. Engel added that the term “enemy combatant” was not the issue. “The important point is that they recognize that we can detain members of the enemy” during a war, he said.

In sum, Bush's Gitmo is up and running. Obama is simply the new owner. He's not whining about "inheriting" Gitmo. To the contrary, Obama wants it.

Some critics of Guantánamo said that Friday’s filing fitted a pattern of recent moves by the administration that seemed intended to undercut continued criticism of Guantánamo but did not make significant changes in detention policy.

They noted that after Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. visited the detention camp last month, he proclaimed it “well run.” They said they had been stung as well by a Pentagon report commissioned by the new administration that said last month that the detention camp on the naval base at Guantánamo Bay meets the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva conventions.

Ramzi Kassem, a detainees’ lawyer who teaches at Yale Law School, said Friday that the new administration had yet to deal effectively either with efforts to release many of the detainees or to improve the conditions at the camp.

Mr. Kassem said the filing Friday was an additional indication that the new administration had yet to grapple with the complexities of Guantánamo or the detainees’ cases. “I think they may be very much under the influence of the rhetoric of the outgoing administration,” he said.

The dismissal of the term "enemy combatant" is just window dressing.

Obama is NOT making significant changes in the detention policy.

Obama is NOT departing from Bush's policies. Although he claims that he's closing Gitmo, right now he's fighting to keep detainees there.

I don't expect Obama to uphold his promise to close the place. He's broken so many other promises already.

Supporters of Obama must be disillusioned by the actions of the new administration. Clearly, the administration believes it can make an extremely superficial declaration about the "enemy combatant" label and think that Americans will be fooled.

The Times is complicit in this now familiar Obama technique by pushing the propaganda and trying to fool its readers.

The headline should alert readers to the fact that Obama is holding on to Bush's policies. No significant change.

This is important:

[A]fter Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. visited the detention camp last month, he proclaimed it “well run.” They said they had been stung as well by a Pentagon report commissioned by the new administration that said last month that the detention camp on the naval base at Guantánamo Bay meets the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva conventions.

Gitmo is good after all!

It's well run. The detention camp "meets the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva conventions."

Who knew?

Gitmo is good. It's not the hell that the Dems have railed about for years.

Remember what Dick Durbin had to say in June 2005?

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others —that had no concern for human beings.

What does Dick have to say about Gitmo and its American personnel now that Obama is the proprietor in chief?

I guarantee Durbin would never make a statement like that today.

I wonder what term will replace "enemy combatant." What does the Obama administration have in mind?

Unfriendly person?

Hostile guest?

Misunderstood but dangerous individual?