On Afghan detainees... Obama = Bush

President Barack Obama will not deviate from the Bush administration's policy that detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights.

After four detainees held by the US military in Afghanistan's Bagram Airfield filed suit against their detention, a federal judge gave the Obama administration a February-20 deadline to decide if it wanted to stand by Bush's legal argument.

In a two-sentence court filing, the Justice Department said Friday that Bagram detainees cannot use US courts to challenge their detention.

"They've now embraced the Bush policy that you can create prisons outside the law," said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who has represented several detainees.

This means that some 600 so-called enemy combatants held at Bagram will remain at the prison as long as the army deems necessary.

The decision shocked human rights attorneys, the Associated Press reported.

"The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out as we'd hoped," said Tina Monshipour Foster, a human rights attorney representing a detainee at the Bagram Airfield. "We all expected better."

Last summer, the Supreme Court gave al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay the right to challenge their detention.

The Justice Department argues that Bagram detainees are different from those held at Guantanamo Bay because the Afghan prison is in an overseas war zone and prisoners are being held as part of a military action.

The government argues that releasing enemy combatants into the Afghan war zone, or even diverting US personnel there to consider their legal cases, could threaten security.

The government also said if the Bagram detainees got access to the courts, it would allow all foreigners captured by the US in conflicts worldwide to file suit for the same treatment.