Obama's Lock Down Smackdown

It's the return of President Odubya.

The White House is preparing an Executive Order on indefinite detention that will provide periodic reviews of evidence against dozens of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, according to several administration officials.

The draft order, a version of which was first considered nearly 18 months ago, is expected to be signed by President Obama early in the New Year. The order allows for the possibility that detainees from countries like Yemen might be released if circumstances there change.

But the order establishes indefinite detention as a long-term Obama administration policy and makes clear that the White House alone will manage a review process for those it chooses to hold without charge or trial.

Nearly two years after Obama's pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo, more inmates there are formally facing the prospect of lifelong detention and fewer are facing charges than the day Obama was elected.

That is in part because Congress has made it difficult to move detainees to the United States for trial. But it also stems from the president's embrace of indefinite detention and his assertion that the congressional authorization for military force, passed after the 2001 terrorist attacks, allows for such detention.

After taking office, the Obama administration reviewed the detainee population at Guantanamo Bay and chose 48 prisoners for indefinite detention. Officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that number will likely increase in coming months as some detainees are moved from a transfer category to a continued detention category.

If signed by President Obama, the new order will provide added review for detainees designated for long-term detention. The order, which is being drafted jointly by White House staff in the National Security council and the White House counsel, will offer detainees in this category a minimal review every six months and then a more lengthy annual review. Detainees will have access to an attorney, to some evidence against them and the ability to challenge their continued detention.

Good luck with that.  You imagine a single indefinite detention detainee will ever go free?  Of course not.   This policy?  This one right here is enough to make me seriously question Obama on civil liberties.  As I've said before, civil liberties and Warren Terrah is the area where Obama has failed completely.  He has surpassed Bush in the depths of his contempt for rule of law, and even fulfilled all my dire predictions of a McCain presidency here.

Obama has done a lot of really good things for this country, but this is the subject where he gets a completely failing grade from me.  An executive order allowing indefinite detention of prisoners without due process or trial, under the pathetic fig leaf of six month reviews?   Completely unacceptable and un-American.  Obama deserves every single bit of criticism, scorn, and anger here.

This is absolutely unacceptable.  No President should have power like this.  Try these men or let them go.

What's to stop Obama from indefinitely holding whomever he deems a threat, or god help us, the next Republican President we have from doing the same thing?

Think about that.