President Obama acknowledged publicly for the first time yesterday that some detainees at Guantanamo Bay may have to be held without trial indefinitely, siding with conservative national security advocates on one of the most contentious issues raised by the closing of the military prison in Cuba.
"We are going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country," Obama said. "But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States."
| Well done, Mr. Cheney ... |
Some human rights advocates criticized Obama for adopting the idea that some detainees are not entitled to a trial. Others said the president was boxed in by cases inherited from the Bush administration in which possible prosecution had been irretrievably compromised by coercive interrogation.
| Of course civilian prosecution was compromised. We never intended to try them in civilian courts. Now Bambi has accepted both the need for tribunals and the need for continuing detention, something Bush and Cheney figured out back in '03. Welcome to the club, Bambi ... |
The president stopped short of saying he would institutionalize indefinite detention for future captives.
"The issue is framed pretty exclusively in terms of existing Guantanamo detainees," said Tom Malinowski, the head of Human Rights Watch's Washington office. "There is a big difference between employing an extraordinary mechanism to deal with legacy cases compromised because of Bush administration actions and saying we need a permanent national security regime."
| We may need to detain people in the future. Depends on how Afghanistan and Pakistan go. Depends on where we have to fight next. Depends on what happens closer to home. We all hope not but we don't know today. That's why we may be talking about detention in the future. |
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