Even MORE News From Camp Guantanamo
Earlier today I noted the sudden surge of news about the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay after months of silence. It's as if the White House finally lifted a news embargo and once again began feeding tidbits to the eager-to-please US press. Ruth suggested one possible reason:
Gitmo maybe is back since it's not going away, not while prisoners can't have hearings and there are Merkins who won't stand for injustice.
Now, as most of you know, Ruth is the more practical, more rational part of this blogging duo. It's been my experience that she is usually right, even when I've preliminarily disagreed. This time, however, I think there's more going on than the sudden surfacing of the inherent decency of the press corps. An article in yesterday's NY Times points to what I think is really going on.
Military prosecutors are in the final phases of preparing the first sweeping case against suspected conspirators in the plot that led to the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, and drew the United States into war, people who have been briefed on the case said.
The charges, to be filed in the military commission system at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would involve as many as six detainees held at the detention camp, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the former senior aide to Osama bin Laden, who has said he was the principal planner of the plot. ...
The case could begin to fulfill a longtime goal of the Bush administration: establishing culpability for the terrorist attacks of 2001. It could also help the administration make its case that some detainees at Guantánamo, where 275 men remain, would pose a threat if they are not held at Guantánamo or elsewhere. Officials have long said that a half-dozen men held at Guantánamo played essential roles in the plot directed by Mr. Mohammed, from would-be hijackers to financiers. [Emphasis added]
Of course, such a conviction would lift the burden from the White House of the total dismissal of the August 6, 2001 PDB which warned of such an attack. Also, of course, the White House hopes that such a conviction will cause people to forget the fact that after the last terrorist attack on the World Trade Center the previous administration treated the whole matter as a crime, and stayed within the boundaries of Constitutional guarantees in prosecuting and convicting those who committed that crime.
And therein lies the rub. I'd like to say that the jury is out on whether the Bush White House will succeed, but that trope is totally out of place in this situation. There will be no jury. In fact, there will be none of the traditional guarantees of due process in place: no right to confront witnesses, no right to challenge evidence, no right to even see the evidence being used by the prosecution. This of course does provide some fodder for an appeal, as this AP article published this morning indicates.
The secrecy shrouding government files on terror suspects is bogging down the Pentagon's effort to hold trials at Guantanamo Bay, with defense attorneys accusing the government of withholding potential evidence.
At pretrial hearings this week, attorneys for two al-Qaida suspects captured in Afghanistan said they need more access to interrogators, witnesses and records. Prosecutors objected, citing a need to protect the identities of U.S. service members and other security concerns.
The hearings did not resolve the disputes, which appear likely to further delay the launch of first U.S. war-crime tribunals since the World War II era. The first detainees were charged more than three years ago, but repeated legal challenges have kept any from going to trial.
"We're going to have to see how willing the judges are to interpret the rules so as to give defense counsel some kind of chance to actually defend their clients," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, a defense attorney for detainee Omar Khadr. "That means litigating these discovery issues and that takes time." [Emphasis added]
Will the Bush administration's "trial of the [new]century" go forward? My guess is that it will get started, probably close enough to the November election for the GOP nominee to keep the flames of 9/11 burning in the press and the Democratic nominee struggling to show strength on security issues.
Will pre-trial proceedings go to the US Supreme Court before the trial even begins? My guess is yes, and given the make-up of the current court, the outcome will probably be in favor of the prosecutors, especially since the Democrats in the 109th Congress allowed the passage of the Military Commissions Act.
In other words, all of the ink spilled about Gitmo this past week is merely some crafty stage setting for the upcoming trials. Sadly, it may work, unless somebody on the national stage finally steps forward and points out just what horrors abound in Camps 1 through 7. Of course, that won't happen unless somebody in the press actually asks the four leading candidates about Guantanamo Bay.
And how likely is that?
Gitmo maybe is back since it's not going away, not while prisoners can't have hearings and there are Merkins who won't stand for injustice.
Now, as most of you know, Ruth is the more practical, more rational part of this blogging duo. It's been my experience that she is usually right, even when I've preliminarily disagreed. This time, however, I think there's more going on than the sudden surfacing of the inherent decency of the press corps. An article in yesterday's NY Times points to what I think is really going on.
Military prosecutors are in the final phases of preparing the first sweeping case against suspected conspirators in the plot that led to the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, and drew the United States into war, people who have been briefed on the case said.
The charges, to be filed in the military commission system at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would involve as many as six detainees held at the detention camp, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the former senior aide to Osama bin Laden, who has said he was the principal planner of the plot. ...
The case could begin to fulfill a longtime goal of the Bush administration: establishing culpability for the terrorist attacks of 2001. It could also help the administration make its case that some detainees at Guantánamo, where 275 men remain, would pose a threat if they are not held at Guantánamo or elsewhere. Officials have long said that a half-dozen men held at Guantánamo played essential roles in the plot directed by Mr. Mohammed, from would-be hijackers to financiers. [Emphasis added]
Of course, such a conviction would lift the burden from the White House of the total dismissal of the August 6, 2001 PDB which warned of such an attack. Also, of course, the White House hopes that such a conviction will cause people to forget the fact that after the last terrorist attack on the World Trade Center the previous administration treated the whole matter as a crime, and stayed within the boundaries of Constitutional guarantees in prosecuting and convicting those who committed that crime.
And therein lies the rub. I'd like to say that the jury is out on whether the Bush White House will succeed, but that trope is totally out of place in this situation. There will be no jury. In fact, there will be none of the traditional guarantees of due process in place: no right to confront witnesses, no right to challenge evidence, no right to even see the evidence being used by the prosecution. This of course does provide some fodder for an appeal, as this AP article published this morning indicates.
The secrecy shrouding government files on terror suspects is bogging down the Pentagon's effort to hold trials at Guantanamo Bay, with defense attorneys accusing the government of withholding potential evidence.
At pretrial hearings this week, attorneys for two al-Qaida suspects captured in Afghanistan said they need more access to interrogators, witnesses and records. Prosecutors objected, citing a need to protect the identities of U.S. service members and other security concerns.
The hearings did not resolve the disputes, which appear likely to further delay the launch of first U.S. war-crime tribunals since the World War II era. The first detainees were charged more than three years ago, but repeated legal challenges have kept any from going to trial.
"We're going to have to see how willing the judges are to interpret the rules so as to give defense counsel some kind of chance to actually defend their clients," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, a defense attorney for detainee Omar Khadr. "That means litigating these discovery issues and that takes time." [Emphasis added]
Will the Bush administration's "trial of the [new]century" go forward? My guess is that it will get started, probably close enough to the November election for the GOP nominee to keep the flames of 9/11 burning in the press and the Democratic nominee struggling to show strength on security issues.
Will pre-trial proceedings go to the US Supreme Court before the trial even begins? My guess is yes, and given the make-up of the current court, the outcome will probably be in favor of the prosecutors, especially since the Democrats in the 109th Congress allowed the passage of the Military Commissions Act.
In other words, all of the ink spilled about Gitmo this past week is merely some crafty stage setting for the upcoming trials. Sadly, it may work, unless somebody on the national stage finally steps forward and points out just what horrors abound in Camps 1 through 7. Of course, that won't happen unless somebody in the press actually asks the four leading candidates about Guantanamo Bay.
And how likely is that?
Labels: 9/11, Bush Legacy, Guantanamo Bay, Human Rights
posted by Diane at 1:12 PM
1 Comments:
Diane -- It occurs to me that this would be a great club to use on the Democrats in the general election. It's also insulation against the Dems attacking the 'thugs on issues that many people care about: Torture, justice, civil rights, etc.
Dem Candidate: This is not a trial, and your government tortured at least one of these individuals by its own admission. Losing our way, blah blah blah.
'thug: See? They want to surrender to the terrorists! We're doing just what WPE said we would do -- bring the 9/11 Evildoers to justice, and they want to stop it. Osama bin Laden will eat your children, blah blah blah.
The administration is very vulnerable on this stuff; they're just smart enough and venal enough to do something like this purely for political purposes.
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