FYI, Obama's AG says Gitmo guests no longer 'enemy combatants'

Well, it's official now. You may still hesitate to invite them over for Saturday dinner. But the Obama administration has changed the words to describe those fellows staying as guests in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

You should no longer call them "enemy combatants."

Technically, of course, the president and Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. have an accurate parsing point. These men were "enemy combatants." That's why they were captured and sent there. But as long as they are in Guantanamo they can't actually be "enemy combatants." Which explains the tall surrounding fences, razor wire and armed guards.

According to some estimates, five dozen or so of the men formerly known as enemy combatants who were released after enforced unarmed sabbaticals in Cuba made their way back to war-torn regions to resume combat duties, making these ex-government guests -- what? -- "renewed enemy combatants"?

Friday's linguistic change was yet another handy way for the new administration to differentiate itself from the Bush administration, which used the term enemy combatants to avoid giving certain international legal rights that could, in the previous administration's controversial mind, have permitted them to become renewed enemy combatants sooner.

That's a stand that former constitutional law teacher Barack Obama disagreed with in the recent presidential campaign. And as our colleague Frank James astutely notes over here, Obama's move is a rare instance of a president voluntarily relinquishing some presidential powers.

Blogger Don Surber, who's been a voluntary but verbally combative prisoner in West Virginia for years, has started a contest over here to find a new name for these not currently enemy combatants. Our favorite so far: friendly combatants. Tell us your nominees below. How about visiting jihadis?

Obama's already signed an order to close within the next year or so the Guantanamo Bay prison facility that now no longer holds enemy combatants. No public word yet from the new administration on where, precisely, these fellows will go next. Other countries are not exactly clamoring to receive immigrants whose fashion tastes tend toward bomb belts.

But without consulting any constitutional texts, it's probably pretty safe to say that even though officially they are now legally no longer enemy combatants, the new location for these guys won't be anywhere near Chicago's South Side Hyde Park neighborhood.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Joe Skipper / Reuters

Comments

[Ron Mepwith]

Along with the term "guests", they need to begin referring to "Hotel Gitmo." Maybe in this economic disaster the US government can offer tourists a week at Hotel Gitmo in sunny Cuba for only $200 a day. For the timid, emphasis could be put on the high degree of security at the Hotel Gitmo.

[fleiter]

More proof that the Obama administration cares more about appearances and PR than it does the security of the nation and the safety of the men and women who serve it.

[Big Jim Slade]

Image rather than substance. That's what Obama is all about. An entire life of image and no performance.

Find any meaningful bills he wrote and passed in Illinois or the US Senate yet? Nobody else has either.

in two months the Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, and Iranians have all started testing Obama's weaknesses. He didn't have the balls to say North Korea's rocket would be shot down.

Domestically he's let the kiddies rob the candy store. Nancy and Harry threw every Democratic hack program they could think of in Porkulus I. Obama even said it was wrong, then whipped out his pen and signed it.

Amateur Night.

[Sigmond]

Let's refer to them as Teletubbies. Everybody loves teletubbies. They are harmless and have never flown airplanes into buildings

[steve rodriguez]

Yeah the GITMO guys are a bunch of good guys! Next think you know he'll invite them to camp out on the White House lawn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Plus dialogs with the Taliban and the Chinese on military!
They'll have their way with Obama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Coronella Keiper]

About time. Let the love begin.
Coronella Keiper, Rhode Island, in the name of The Lord Jesus Christ.

[Chris]

You guys know that prisoners of war are still prisoners, right?

[Don]

Geezs! ......cute, lovable, linen balls.

[Politico Chick]

I call them TEDDY BEARS in my Blog...being snarky of course!