The American Pundit

Remember all of Barack Obama’s rhetoric about how we could effectively fight the war on terrorism while not abandoning our nation’s principles? All of the hot rhetoric slamming the Bush Administration for not allowing detainees to challenge their detention in our court system? Yeah…change of plans.

Detainees being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan cannot use US courts to challenge their detention, the US says.

The justice department ruled that some 600 so-called enemy combatants at Bagram have no constitutional rights.

Most have been arrested in Afghanistan on suspicion of waging a terrorist war against the US.

The ruling has disappointed human rights lawyers who had hoped the Obama administration would take a different line to that of George W Bush.

Prof Barbara Olshansky, the lead counsel in a legal challenge on behalf of four Bagram detainees, told the BBC the justice department’s decision not to reform the rules was both surprising and “enormously disappointing”.

….

The exact quote, as noted by Ed Morrissey? Keeping in mind that the Justice Department in question is Barack Obama’s? “Having considered the matter, the government adheres to its previously articulated position.” So, in other words, the detainees are unlawful combatants who have no rights to the U.S. court system. Which is…exactly what the Bush Administration said. And it was slammed by the left on a constant basis for it.

So, Bush was apparently a war criminal and torturer for saying these unlawful combatants had no Constitutional rights and no right to challenge their detention in our courts. Is Barack Obama going to be called the same by the left? As Ed says, there are those like Glen Greenwald who will still rip Obama on principle. But I expect to see much of the left’s perpetually-outraged class suddenly decide that, yeah, that’s a reasonable decision. Suddenly they’ll find that the terrorists aren’t ordinary criminals, but rather terrorists who violated the Geneva Conventions in their actions.

So in the last two days we’ve seen the Obama Administration discover that A) Gitmo is aligned with the Geneva Conventions, and B) The people there have violated the Geneva Convention and have no Constitutional rights to challenge their detention. Considering that Obama used both issues as a campaign issue to slam the Bush Administration, is a mea culpa forthcoming?

…

Yeah, right.