Obama on Guantanamo

A federal judge has ruled that the power of the US president to hold "war on terror" suspects at Guantanamo Bay jail is more limited than the administration would like, paving the way for a legal battle. In his ruling, Judge John Bates said the US government cannot detain a person merely for having shown "substantial support" for the Taliban or Al Qaeda.
The Obama administration had made the case in March that detainees could be kept at Guantanamo if they had shown "substantial support" for the Taliban or Al Qaeda. This was intended to be used as a reason for the indefinite detentions of "war on terror" suspects without charge.
The absurdity of the Obama administration's claim that it has a right to jail people who give substantial support to the Taliban is highlighted by Juan Cole, who notes that "If you wanted to jail people for thinking well of the Taliban, you'd have to imprison 5% of the Afghan population, or nearly a million and a half people, and 14% of the Pakistani population, or about 24 million people."
Basically, Obama thinks he has the right to imprison all those 25 million people...