COMMON DREAMS– Detainees at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their imprisonment the way detainees in Guantanamo Bay have, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The United States is holding the detainees at the military prison on Afghan territory through a cooperative arrangement with Afghanistan, three appeals court judges said in a unanimous decision turning aside the request of a Tunisian and two Yemeni prisoners.

The jurisdiction of the U.S. courts does not extend to foreigners held at Bagram in the Afghan theater of war, added the judges, who said a U.S. district judge should have thrown out the detainees’ petitions.

“While we cannot say that extending our constitutional protections to the detainees would be in any way disruptive of that relationship” with the Afghan government, “neither can we say with certainty what the reaction of the Afghan government would be,” said the opinion written by Judge David Sentelle.

The petitions to the U.S. court system by the three men sought the same right to challenge their indefinite detention that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, won in the U.S. Supreme Court.

During appeals court arguments in January, the other two appeals judges in the case, Harry Edwards and David Tatel, seemed to struggle with the problem of whether they could craft a narrowly constructed opinion that would affect only the three men and not lay the groundwork for opening up the judicial branch of government to many other detainee cases now and in the future.

Friday’s decision spelled out that issue and referred back to January’s argument.

“The court engaged in an extended dialog with counsel for the petitioners in which we repeatedly sought some limiting principle that would distinguish Bagram from any other military installation. Counsel was able to produce no such distinction,” the ruling noted.

Sentelle wrote that the three detainees “seem to be arguing that the fact of United States control of Bagram under the lease of the military base is sufficient … we reject this extreme understanding.”

Under that interpretation, noncitizens held in any U.S. military facility in the world arguably could challenge their detention, said the appeals court opinion.

Sentelle, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, is an appointee of President Ronald Reagan. Edwards was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, and Tatel by President Bill Clinton.

Written by Pete Yost

© 2010 Associated Press

HUFFINGTON POST– Next week, there is going to be a “debate” in Congress on yet another war funding bill. The bill is supposed to pass without debate, so no one will notice.

What George Orwell wrote about in 1984 has come true. What Eisenhower warned us about concerning the “military-industrial complex” has come true. War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape, so much so that no one notices it anymore.

But we’re going to change this. Today, we’re introducing a bill called ‘The War Is Making You Poor Act’. The purpose of this bill is to connect the dots, and to show people in a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars.

Next year’s budget allocates $159,000,000,000 to perpetuate the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. That’s enough money to eliminate federal income taxes for the first $35,000 of every American’s income. Beyond that, leaves over $15 billion to cut the deficit.

And that’s what this bill does. It eliminates separate funding for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and eliminates federal income taxes for everyone’s first $35,000 of income ($70,000 for couples). Plus it pays down the national debt.

The costs of the war have been rendered invisible. There’s no draft. Instead, we take the most vulnerable elements of our population, and give them a choice between unemployment and missile fodder. Government deficits conceal the need to pay in cash for the war.

We put the cost of both guns and butter on our Chinese credit card. In fact, we don’t even put these wars on budget; they are still passed using ’emergency supplemental’. A nine-year ’emergency’.

Let’s show Congress the cost of these wars is too much for us. Tell Congress that you like ‘The War Is Making You Poor Act’. No, tell Congress you love it. Act now.

http://www.TheWarIsMakingYouPoor.com

All we are saying is “give peace a chance.” We will end these wars.

Together.

© COPYRIGHT HUFFINGTON POST, 2010