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Friday, February 20, 2009

Obama agrees with Bush in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's Justice Department sided with the former Bush administration on Friday, saying detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights.

In a two-sentence court filing, department lawyers said the Obama administration agreed that detainees at Bagram Air Base cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detentions. The filing shocked human rights attorneys.

"The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out as we'd hoped," said Tina Monshipour Foster, a human rights attorney representing a detainee at the Bagram Air Base. "We all expected better."

In midyear last year, the Supreme Court gave al-Qaida and Taliban suspects held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their detention. With about 600 detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and thousands more held in Iraq, courts are grappling with whether they, too, can sue to be released. - FOX News

It would seem that the preaching of change, means more of the same. Not that it is necessarily a bad thing. It just shows that all the Bush Bashing may not have really been appropriate. Especially since he is doing the same.

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