The standards for evidence will be tightened up some, but it still won’t be the same a civilian trial. In my view, the detainees at Gitmo should be procecuted in civililian courts, held as POWs (if that’s appropriate) or prosecuted in military court (for secrecy purposes) using the same standards of evidence as required by a civilian court. I think the military tribunals system is pretty broken from beginning to end. Apparently, this administration is going to continue to use military tribunals under that Military Commisions Act.
This seems like a big broken promise to me and a big betrayal on the part of the administration.
Here’s what he said during the campaign:
This is a big FAIL in my book. I’m already annoyed that he’s not releasing the photos (although that seems better justified).
I think you’ll find that allot of the outrage that people felt over this when Bush was in power isn’t there now.
People trust Obama to stay on the right side of the line on these things.
Let’s stipulate that I have always been a supporter of some form of military commission, as these are not only constitutional but satisfy our treaty obligations.
As for you, Laudenum, I need you to justify your post. The government is the same, essentially, as it was a few months back, save for some personnel running some offices. Why would sonething be fundamentally unjust in the Bush term and just fine now? That makes no sense to me.
I voted for Obama and am generally fairly progressive about things. But I simply can not get worked up over things like waterboarding that are done to the truly hardcore terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who openly admit pride at killing thousands of Americans. In fact, if you really wanted to get inside the dark recesses of my mind, you would see that I am not opposed to even worse tortures being inflicted upon such people if such might result in the prevention of future terrorist attacks. Societies do not survive by coddling those who are openly trying to murder their people.
Now, I feel differently if we’re talking about people who may not be terrorists at all- they deserve some kind of fair trial to decide if they are terrorists. But to the extent that they actually are hardcore terrorists, I have no sympathy for them and look with suspicion upon those who do.
I agree with you on this. This is different (in my view) that deciding whether or not to release photos or memos – that’s a decision followed by a concrete action to do something specific. In the case of the military tribunals, he says he’s going to direct people to make some things tighter (use of hearsay sometimes, but not all the time, or some b.s. like that), but basically the same people are going to carry out the trials that would have before.
I understand the need for extra secrecy when carrying out trials of suspected POWs or terror suspects or something (the way we gather the evidence is more likely to be classified, for example). That said, I think the same rules of evidence should apply – no hearsay, no coerced confessions, the right to be represented by a lawyer (of your own choosing? maybe, as long as the lawyer is qualified to have access to secret information), and so on.
If you want to call those “military tribunals”, OK, but that’s not what the administration is going to do. They are going to tweak the current broken (IMO) system to get something that may be a little better, but a far cry from fair.
So, what we have here is the Obama administration saying that they will not conduct fair trials, but modified, seemingly unfair trials. How do you decide who is a terrorist or not? Once you figure out how to sort the terrorists from the guys who were sold out by the local strongman, I’ll let you decide on their punishment. Deal?
I, for one, won’t be voting for Obama in the next election and I won’t be donating to his campaign. Not that it matters, since every voting district I live in, with the exception of governor, is safe for the Democrats. This is just the latest in a series of disappointing actions from the Obama administration. I don’t see any reason that these people cannot be tried in the military court system (even our civillian court system is already set up to handle classified information).
And yet, here I am, not being quiet. I didn’t shout on this board during the Bush administration, but I was shouting.
Have you read any Ted Rall? He’s pretty extreme and shouted pretty loudly. He’s still shouting. In the article I linked to, the ACLU is still shouting, as is the Human Rights Watch.
The guy from the ACLU called it the “Bush Obama Doctrine.”
It’s a compromise, but in no way a good one. We’re supposed to be the good guys, but we’re not doing a good job. These trials (amongst many, many other things) are going to be viewed in Middle East as a sign as to how we view Muslims. If we are viewed as running kangaroo courts, the we will have to bear the consequences.
I’m not saying that everyone in Gitmo should be released. I’m sure that many of them are bad people, but why give the perception that they’re all going to be railroaded? That’s exactly what these tribunals will do. It’s possible that CIA torturers selflessly water boarderd prisoners hundred of times for the common good of the USA, but if we sacrifice those values which our forefathers fought for, we deserve to lose our place as #1 country.
I don’t know what you’re talking about here. Military tribunals weren’t conjured up out of thin air. George Washington convened them himself diring the Revolutionary War, they were employed in the Civil War, the Mexican War, the War of 1812. Much of our current jurisprudence concerning them derives from court cases brought during the Civil War and WWII.
So perhaps you ought to look at what our forefathers were fighting for, and the tools they were using, and reconsider your statement.
Incidentally, the official name of the Nuremberg Trials was the International Military Tribunal. I’m sure the impossibility of prosecuting the offenders in any other manner is evident to most of us.
And they were criticized then, too. The Civil War military tribunals, in particular, came under heavy criticism. All of these (with perhaps the exception of the Revolutionary War) were convened during a time when a Declaration of War was in effect or in the immediate aftermath (and note that the post-Civil War tribunals got a smack down by the Supreme Court in Milligan).
Here, what the Bush and now the Obama administration have proposed, is in essence, a permanent tribunal system, since the “War on Terror” is an undeclared war which probably has no end in sight as there will always be terrorists. That is a major distinction which you are ignoring.
Military tribunals worked well enough in 1812. It’s not 1812. If you want to base all your jurisprudence on something that happened 197 years ago, I guess we’ll have to disagree.
What does the age of the case have to do with it? Much of our current understanding of separation of powers goes back to Marbury v. Madison, which is even older than that.
I’m just going to assume you don’t want that overturned, right?
Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the terrorist attacks, casually admitted guilt during a series of outbursts as the translators struggled to keep up and the judge repeatedly sought to regain control.
“We did what we did; we’re proud of Sept. 11,” Binalshibh announced at one point in proceedings that dealt with a number of legal issues, including whether he is mentally competent to stand trial on charges that carry a potential death sentence.
Mohammed, who is representing himself, switched back and forth between Arabic and English, insisting at one point that a uniformed military lawyer assigned to assist him be removed from his defense table. The man, he said, represents the “people who tortured me,” he said.
Mohammed shrugged off the potential death sentence he faces for charges that include the murder of nearly 3,000 people in the Sept. 11 attacks.
“We don’t care about capital punishment,” he said. “We are doing jihad for the cause of God.”
Those trials have also come under criticism for trying people under ex post facto laws and for using their own procedural rules. Simply pointing at Nuremberg doesn’t negate criticism against the Guantanamo trials. Even if I accept that the Nuremberg trials should have happened (which I do), that doesn’t mean that I have to like every aspect of them, nor does it mean that I have to like what’s going on at Guantanamo.
And Altair33, I have no problem with punishing people (not torturing, but whatever the appropriate legal punishment is) who admit guilt to crimes through an uncoerced confession, OK? That’s not the issue I’d like to explore.
The MCA, in my view, is an inferior way, maybe unconstitutional way, to determine guilt or innocence. During the campaign, Obama promised to do away with them. Now he is breaking that promise and a pretty serious way.