Obama administration preparing order for indefinite detentions
Following in Bush's Footsteps


by Tom Eley
Global Research, June 29, 2009
WSWS


The Obama administration is drafting an executive order that would give the US president the power to arrest without charge, and imprison indefinitely without trial, foreign nationals it accuses of being terrorists, according to several senior government officials who spoke with the Washington Post and a reporter for non-profit news source ProPublica on condition of anonymity.

The order, should it be released, would likely reuse arguments made by the previous administration of George W. Bush that the laws of war allow the executive branch to disregard the established judicial system and domestic laws and rights, such as those guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

Behind Obama’s turn toward indefinite detention is the quandary he faces over the prison camp at the US military naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Shortly after entering office in late January, Obama issued an executive order—to great media fanfare—calling for the closure of the Guantánamo prison by January 2010. But the debate that has ensued in Washington, while nominally focused on what to do with the remaining Guantánamo inmates, has developed into a discussion of the broader anti-democratic methods of the “war on terror.â€