As the United States restarts its effort to prosecute — and ultimately execute — five detainees accused of conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks, it has fallen to Brig. Gen. Mark S. Martins both to prove them guilty and to show the world that the tribunal system is now legitimate....Martins attended Harvard Law School and worked alongside Obama the law student at the Harvard Law School. Obama, as a senator and presidential candidate opposed Bush's military commissions "which the Supreme Court struck down because Congress had not authorized them, and he voted against the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which revived them."
The five had been arraigned at Guantánamo Bay before, in 2008, but the Obama administration shut that case down upon taking office, then tried to move it to federal court in New York, before surrendering to a political uproar.
As he reboots the case, General Martins is also trying to rebrand the system by emphasizing changes that Congress made in 2009 — notably, a higher bar to “hearsay” evidence and a prohibition against using statements made during cruel or degrading treatment. Obama administration officials echo those arguments, saying that the current tribunals are fair, unlike those during the Bush administration...
May 4, 2012
Rebranding the Guantanamo military tribunals.
The NYT reports:
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Martins attended Harvard Law School
Oh, dear. Is that where they hire faculty based upon race?
Hilarious. Guantanamo is not only still open for business, but we are having show trials and executing terrorist shitheads.
But, these trials are fair, you see.
Hope and Change are magical. Things are, like, the same, but different. It's the Bill & Ted Presidency!
This is and example of the crap we do to assuage our own consciences and give us the ability to tell ourselves that we are compassionate and fair.
So don't connect this tinkering (or compare its meaning) to our raid of a compound to kill a guy, or our firing missiles at nameless people from a drone over Yemen.
Nor to the bombs we drop on enclaves regardless of whether Taliban kids are there.
Remember - we are compassionate and fair.
(And we think we are fooling the average guy in the Islamic street that we are so very good and descent.)
Under the Obama doctrine, we could release them, take them to Warzistan, then blow them up.
Sounds like a plan.
Not sure if that would be Kafkaesque or Orwellian. I'll have to do some research.
I can understand why the whole messy business has made the Obama administration much more sympathetic to drones and a well-place hellfire missile or two or a hundred.
Of course, it was mostly Obama's side of the aisle that made the whole business messy to begin with. And by that, I don't just mean the problems with torture. Remember, it was blue NY & NJ & their representatives that threw the conniption at the idea of federal trials on their states.
So I guess the Feds need to start supplying their agents with vetted and secure prostitutes. A new and exciting career for all those out of work college graduates.
So I guess the Feds need to start supplying their agents with vetted and secure prostitutes.
The SSSA - the Secret Service Security Administration.
Tasked with vetting and permitting the pool, and running the metal detectors at the hotels - that sort of thing.
Rabel,
It would be Nixonian. Career intelligence officials fear they will not be able to get ahead of any future attacks. Instead of capturing and gathering intelligence we are just doing the Obama version of carpet bombing, only w/ drones. It's gutless, the opposite of what the MSM is peddling.
to show the world that the tribunal system is now legitimate....
What a sick joke.
If the changes were made in '09, they were done by the uber-majorities that gave us Stimulus and ZeroCare.
Any takers the perps will walk?
Rabel said...
Under the Obama doctrine, we could release them, take them to Warzistan, then blow them up.
Sounds like a plan.
Not sure if that would be Kafkaesque or Orwellian. I'll have to do some research.
How about Grouchovian or Harpovian?
"Worked aongside Obama at Harvard Law School"? What are they trying to say here? That Obama has actually had a real job.
Isn't saying that their prosecution will ultimately lead to their execution the opposite of a fair trial?
"Such skeptics include Donald Guter, a retired rear admiral who was the top Navy lawyer after the Sept. 11 attacks and fought the Bush administration’s push for draconian tribunals."
-- Why didn't we break out describing the tribunals as draconian till there, if they are? Shouldn't that be "administration's tribunals, which Guter describes as draconian"? Come on NYT, straight news goes in one place, editorialization goes in another.
Hint. It goes in editorials.
standard fare in the obama era.
if it might possibly be bad, it's the fault of the evil bush.
if it might possibly be good, it's a triumph of hopenchange!
same as it ever was.
A vision of light just came to me! I know what Hope and Change means now. It means that things themselves are altered through politics.
Guantanamo, unemployment, disgusting deficit spending, fomenting war, killing people with drones, show trials -- all those things were bad before 2008. But now, through the magical alchemy of Obama's Hope and Change, those exact same things are good.
It's been a beautiful metamorphosis. Nothing has changed, yet everything has changed.
San Dimas High School football rules!
The self righteous world holds the USA on trial for being the bully that strikes back at the noble Muslim Jihadis, who after all did declare war on us first, the poor dears.
The Jihadis are wishing that Bush was back. Paladin Obama does have a talent for killing his Saracen opponents and ignoring questions later.
I want to hear what Jimmah Carter has to say about his beloved Palestinians.
It has the same legitimacy as pardoning all murderers, and then executing them at random.
People look at the shithead doing the at random.
I liked Instapundit's take:
THIS DOES SEEM LIKE A CONCISE SUMMARY OF THE ADMINISTRATION’S POSITION: "Obama inherited everything from George Bush (except the intelligence network that tracked down Bin Laden)."
The self righteous world holds the USA on trial for being the bully that strikes back at the noble Muslim Jihadis, who after all did declare war on us first, the poor dears.
Sorry, Tradeguy, but I'm gonna have to cross you on this.
The self righteous world holds the self righteous USA on trial for supporting dictators like Mubarak at their expense, while proclaiming ourselves to be freedom loving democrats that help the poor and oppressed of the world.
Sure we love democracy. For us.
But we love our security more than we love democracy for them.
Brig. Gen. Mark S. Martins, first in class at West Point, Rhodes Scholar, Magna Cum Laude at Harvard Law.
Combat platoon leader with the 82nd Airboune, two bronze stars, Legion of Merit, etc.
Nonetheless, his high school classmates still call him "Doofie".
I kid, I kid
and to show the world that the tribunal system is now legitimate....
Now legitimate? When were the military tribunals ever illegitimate?
We could rename it "Happy Island Summer Camp".
But, a couple of acquittals, occasioned by the Dems' high-minded legalisms, will make them like us.
War on Terror - over!
"Divided internally, the administration entered a year of indecision."
Leadership!
Get a load of General Martins' cheek bones. Now that's Harvard man!
Don't lose any sleep over the Taliban's kids. Per the Geneva Convention, illegal combatnts, who do not wear uniforms, are not afforded any protection, and any otherwise protected structures lose protected status by virtue of the illegal combatants being present. This deciding to be a terrorist is really horrific decision, and has severe consequences. If one doesn't like the consequences, one has the option of not being an illegal combatant, wearing a uniform, following the Geneva code, respecting civilian structures.
Geneva is harsh to illegal combatants and their supporters, to discourage those methods, and support for those methods.
Interesting phrasing. Does that mean he didn't make law review?
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