Jason Leopold tells Boing Boing about a story of his just published in Vice:
The war in Afghanistan is not ending, US government attorneys said in court documents unsealed Friday, undercutting statements President Barack Obama made last December and in his State of the Union address a few weeks later when he formally declared that “the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion.”
But Obama didn’t really mean that the war was over, the government now argues.
“Simply put, the President’s statements signify a transition in United States military operations, not a cessation …” Andrew Warden, a Justice Department attorney, wrote. “Although the United States has ended its combat mission in Afghanistan, the fighting there certainly has not stopped.”
Warden made the argument in a 34-page motion (viewable below as a PDF) filed in US District Court for the District of Columbia in response to a legal challenge by Guantanamo detainee Mukhtar Yahi Naji al-Warafi. The detainee asked a federal court to grant his writ of habeas corpus and set him free because Obama said the war in Afghanistan is over and the legal authorization the US has relied upon to hold him for the past 13 years is no longer valid.
Al-Warafi, a Yemeni national held by the US solely on the basis of his alleged Taliban membership, is one of a handful of Guantanamo captives who have filed so-called end of hostilities challenges in federal court arguing that Obama’s formal declaration signifying an end to the war in Afghanistan paves the way toward their immediate release from Guantanamo.
“The Justice Department Just Declared That the War in Afghanistan Is Not Over” [VICE NEWS]