Well… I know it’s been “only” nine months since the inauguration of President Obama… and I know I’m supposed to give him the benefit of the doubt (because, after all, he only has a majority in Congress)… but really, this just takes the cake:

“Habeas rights under the United States Constitution do not extend to enemy aliens detained in the active war zone at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.”

That’s the Obama administration’s Department of Justice filing (PDF) in three court cases brought by “unlawful enemy combatants” who are challenging their detention by the United States at Bagram Airfield.

Note that these three detainees were kidnapped off the streets in places like Thailand and Tunisia, and were then flown to Bagram for detention. The OBAMA administration is arguing that the U.S. government has the right to kidnap people off the streets anywhere in the world, fly them to Afghanistan, and hold them incommunicado without charges or access to counsel for as long as they’d like, no questions asked.

As Glenn Greenwald so aptly noted, it was Obama himself who spoke these beautiful, stirring words last year:

By giving suspects a chance–even one chance–to challenge the terms of their detention in court, to have a judge confirm that the Government has detained the right person for the right suspicions, we could solve this problem without harming our efforts in the war on terror one bit. . . .

Most of us have been willing to make some sacrifices because we know that, in the end, it helps to make us safer. But restricting somebody’s right to challenge their imprisonment indefinitely is not going to make us safer. In fact, recent evidence shows it is probably making us less safe.

But, you know, they’re being held in Afghanistan, not Cuba: truly, THAT is CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.