In October, the D.C. Circuit vacated the conviction for material support for terrorism of Bin Ladin's driver, Salim Hamden. This ended the convoluted legal journey for Hamden which included being held for months after his 66 month sentence. Hamden fought his conviction after being returned to Yemen.
In an interesting clash with the administration's lawyers and DOJ lawyers, Obama's Harvard law classmate and premier military lawyer, Brig. General Mark S. Martins is arguing it is not valid to use tribunals to charge conspiracy when it is not recognized as a war crime under international law. The administration argues that it is, and the D.C. circuit has ruled twice that it isn't.
This is also involves a clash between General Martins and Eric Holder. General Martins refused to sign the DOJ crafted brief, and has said he will not oppose the defense motion to dismiss the conspiracy charge and would order his military attorney team not to oppose it.
Against this backdrop has been Congress' refusal to approve funding to hold trials of alleged terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged accomplices in civilian court blocks from New York's Ground Zero.
Folks who have committed an act of war against the US on the battlefield can be detained as prisoners of war and be held indefinitely until the war is terminated. No US civilian court will have a jurisdiction and meet rules of evidence that can withstand the traditional appeal process.
The military tribunals have no jurisdiction to conduct a trial for a prisoner of war. The terrorists are properly classified as prisoners of war and therefore the tribunals will not be upheld.
Did you really want to throw OBL’s driver and media guy into the act of war camp? Of course, a lot of these guys did “confess” after the being waterboarded enough times. Any problem with that?
I bet you can’t tell me what is an “act of war” or what is a “war,” either. Nor could I or anyone and in fact we abandoned that nomenclature years ago, not withstanding soundbites from the conservative politicians that we are at “war” with the terrorists.
See the problem? There are just no standards here.
Many have a similar opinion as you espouse but it is certainly not the law. The Supreme Court rejected Bush/Cheney’s indefinite detention of “enemy combatants” seized in Afghanistan and shipped to Gitmo. Instead, the Court said our Constitution protects even these bad guys and they have a right of habeas corpus.
And, aside from the cases Jeff points out, does your opinion waver at all when you confront the reality that more half (56%) of the Gitmos prisoners who initially filed habeas petitions were set free by the courts bc the government couldn’t prove they were bad guys? While the DC Circuit has imposed new standards recently that make it nearly impossible for a HC to be granted, the bottom line is that there were a lot of mistakes made in the trenches at the time these people were seized. Apparently, Afghan warlords quickly figured out the best to get rid of rival was to tell the US he worked for Obama Bin Laden.
No, sorry, I can’t agree with you on this one. Responding to injustice- even tragic injustice – with more of the same never seemed to be a good idea to me.
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