The whole thing is a legal nightmare, and it sounds like there will be some improvisation to work it out.
"It would have to be some sort of hybrid that involves military commissions that actually administer justice rather than just serve as kangaroo courts," Tribe said. "It will have to both be and appear to be fundamentally fair in light of the circumstances. I think people are going to give an Obama administration the benefit of the doubt in that regard."If you ask me, Bush and co. didn't have the cohones to deal with this very complex and ugly problem.
Though a hybrid court may be unpopular, other advisers and Democrats involved in the Guantanamo Bay discussions say Obama has few other options.
Prosecuting all detainees in federal courts raises a host of problems. Evidence gathered through military interrogation or from intelligence sources might be thrown out. Defendants would have the right to confront witnesses, meaning undercover CIA officers or terrorist turncoats might have to take the stand, jeopardizing their cover and revealing classified intelligence tactics.
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"I don't think we need to completely reinvent the wheel, but we need a better tribunal process that is more transparent," Schiff said.
That means something different would need to be done if detainees couldn't be released or prosecuted in traditional courts. Exactly what that something would look like remains unclear.
According to three advisers participating in the process, Obama is expected to propose a new court system, appointing a committee to decide how such a court would operate. Some detainees likely would be returned to the countries where they were first captured for further detention or rehabilitation. The rest could probably be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts, one adviser said. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing talks, which have been private.
Whatever form it takes, Tribe said he expects Obama to move quickly.
"In reality and symbolically, the idea that we have people in legal black holes is an extremely serious black mark," Tribe said. "It has to be dealt with."
3 comments:
I really don't like this idea of "hybrid courts". Our system was founded on an idea of governance. If that idea was nothing more than a quaint flutter of misplaced idealism then we should stop pretending to value freedom above security and be done with this pretense of a free society.
If they were enduring ideals, then we should follow them to the letter. Close Guantanamo bring them all to the mainland to be held for open trial. Either that or declare them POWs and allow Red Cross inspections and make every single person in the chain of command who violated the Geneva Conventions liable for prosecution as war criminals.
This Gitmo crap has me really pissed off and I'm not in the mood for a "middle way" solution.
not that you need anymore info to make you angrier, but a good documentary i watched recently is 'Taxi to the Dark Side":
"Just days after an Afghan taxi driver picked up three passengers and never returned home, he wound up dead at Bagram Air Base, killed by injuries inflicted by U.S. soldiers. Interviews, news footage and firsthand reports provide a gripping look at the case and the Bush administration's policy on torture. Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) directs this Best Documentary winner for the 2008 Oscars."
You were right, Nick. I didn't need anything to make me angrier, but now I am angrier.
The thing I don't get is how all of these lunatics get off calling themselves patriots supporting freedom. Freedom is a dangerous thing. Accepting that danger is what it means to be American. Rejecting it and screaming "freedom" as loud as you can just makes you a Fox-watching moron.
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