By Debbie Schlussel
It would be intellectually dishonest to pretend that the Bush Administration didn’t start finishing off the concept of “enemy combatants,” which spans U.S. history. The Bushies backtracked and wimped out on court cases–specifically the Abdullah Al-Muhajir a/k/a Jose Padilla case–in which they planned to treat certain Islamic terrorists as enemy combatants on our own soil. At least, the Bushies wimped out only on calling Americans–not everybody else–“enemy combatants.”
But now the Obama Administration has put the final nail in the coffin, doing away entirely with the use of the “enemy combatant” term we’ve used in America for almost two centuries–even against foreigners bent on America’s destruction. And with that, Islamic terrorists will be treated the same as common criminals. People who planned to get dirty bombs and explode them over America will be treated no differently than bank robbers, drunk drivers, and embezzlers. Heck, if they were tried in federal court (which usually excludes drunk drivers but not the other two categories), they’ll be sharing the same prison cell.

No Longer “Enemy Combatant,” Now Just Joe Criminal
And, de facto, terrorism against Americans will be no worse than those crimes in the eyes of the law.
Although, in this case, the Obama people focused on Gitmo detainees, the fact is that it now applies to everyone–no-one will ever again be treated as our enemy. They’ll be just another clinical criminal in the American prison laboratory of crazy.
Congrats, America:

The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush’s key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Corrrection: Abandoning it after Bush began abandoning it.

Obama still asserts the military’s authority to hold detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. But his Justice Department says that authority comes from Congress and the international laws of war, not from the president’s own wartime power as Bush had argued.
The Obama administration’s position came in response to a deadline by U.S. District Judge John Bates, who is overseeing lawsuits of detainees challenging their detention. Bates asked the administration to give its definition of whom the United States may hold as an “enemy combatant.”
The filing back’s [DS: sic] Bush’s stance on the authority to hold detainees, even if they were not captured on the battlefield in the course of hostilities. In their lawsuits, detainees have argued that only those who directly participated in hostilities should be held. . . .
Attorney General Eric Holder also submitted a declaration to the court outlining President Barack Obama’s efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within a year and determine where to place the 240 people held there. He said there could be “further refinements” to the administration’s position as that process goes on.

“Refinements”? That’s fertilizer speak for backtracks a/k/a flip-flops.

“Promptly determining the appropriate disposition of those detained at Guantanamo Bay is a high priority for the president,” Holder wrote.

And a high priority for Al-Qaeda. Hmmm . . . Two out of three idiots (Obama, Bin Laden, Bush) agree: Close Gitmo.

“The particular facts and circumstances justifying detention will vary from case to case, and may require the identification and analysis of various analogues from traditional international armed conflicts,” the government lawyers wrote. “Accordingly, the contours of the `substantial support’ and `associated forces’ bases of detention will need to be further developed in their application to concrete facts in individual cases.”

“Various analogues from traditional international armed conflicts”?
Ah, so it HAMAS throws Fatah off twelve-story buildings–you know, in their traditional armed conflicts, I guess that goes.
We’re going to let all the nuts and nutty nations fighting each other around the world decide how we treat those bent on destroying our country.
Say good-bye to American sovereignty . . . and American safety and security.