As this Peter Finn piece in the Washington Post makes clear, the state of evidence against Guantanamo Bay detainees is so sad that it is beyond pathetic. We probably can’t convict more than a handful of them, and most of them probably don’t even deserve to be prosecuted. The Pentagon says that 61 separate released detainees have returned to active jihadist activities. I think they’re totally full of shit, but think about what it would mean if it were true!
We are going to have to release almost everyone at Guantanamo because we can’t successfully prosecute them. But many of them could have and should have been prosecuted. A few of them are seriously dangerous criminals, and some of them were directly involved in the 9/11 plot. Some people on the right will kick and scream about releasing even the innocent, let alone the guilty. But what are we supposed to do?
The people to be angry with are the Republicans that created this situation. Imagine if I told you on 9/11 that the people that did it would be released because the government screwed up their cases! What if I told you that the government wouldn’t even be able to maintain coherent case files or keep track of physical evidence!
I mean, look at this:
Military defense lawyers also said yesterday that the Office of Military Commissions may have accidentally withdrawn the charges against all defendants at Guantanamo Bay facing trial, including Jawad and even Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the operational mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Defense lawyers said the Office of Military Commissions, while creating new jury panels, took the additional step of re-referring all charges, which, they said, would return all cases to square one and require new arraignments.
“This was a royal screw-up,” said Air Force Reserve Maj. David Frakt, Jawad’s military attorney. Another military lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, expressing disbelief at the action, said, “This is military justice 101.”
A military judge at Guantanamo Bay has asked lawyers in the case of Canadian Omar Khadr, who is about to go on trial, to brief him on the matter.
“If, in fact, the charges referred on 24 April 2007 have been withdrawn and re-referred on 17 December 2008, it appears the first order of business at the Commission session scheduled for 19 January 2009 is to arraign Mr Khadr on the newly referred charges,” Judge Patrick J. Parrish wrote in an e-mail to counsel.
Pentagon officials called the legal move “simply an administrative action to update commission panels.”
“In some cases, the defense is challenging the way the substitutions were made,” according to a statement by the Office of Military Commissions. “The military judges have ordered briefs on this issue. Depending upon how the judges rule, the government will be prepared to respond.”
Hurricane Katrina was patty-cake compared to this. George W. Bush kept us safe from terrorists? The way things stand right now, we’re going to have to allow tainted evidence in order to avoid setting the 9/11 plotters free.
The Obama team is going to have to be blunt with the American people about what happened, how Bush screwed up, and why all of these cases are tainted.
It would sure help if the DOJ could go after the administration officials who caused this fuckup by legalizing torture. But then, that would be “looking backwards”, wouldn’t it?
I really hope Obama does the right thing. It won’t be easy, thanks to the way Bush has walled him in to a series of bad options.
That said, I think someone like Khalid Sheik Mohammed could be prosecuted even without any of the tainted evidence. The case against him has to be airtight, based on what he did pre-2002 and pre-capture.
I’m not a legal expert, but if they can’t use confessions, informant’s testimony, and they’ve screwed up the chain of custody on the physical evidence, I’m not sure they can convict KSM.
When you screw up, torture and violate the law, there goes your case.
BUT
the real 9/11 masterminds are NOT in Gitmo. They’re running free. We just heard from one.
Time takes care of BushCheney.
How about Obama? Everyday proves his ” No. We. Can’t.” That election Ad for Change, only fools believed it. I was fooled. fool me no more!
Quite the payback:
idea triggered from the first Commenter at the link:
How about Obama making his first overseas visit — not to Canada but — to the Kyber Pass.
Af/Pak will be the graveyard of the Clinton III-Obama as VP administration.
IMO, the Gitmo detainees were never meant to be examples of legality. They were just political props, pawns that Bush & company could use and point to as scary terrorists. The worst of the worst. And see, we’re lockin’ em up and throwin’ away the key!
The calculation was that Bushco would be long gone before the FUBAR consequences would have to be faced (by Obama).
screwed up is that there never was an actual case that could be brought in a court of law. There never was any evidence, in fact there was nothing.
The real point of Guantanamo was to assert the newly-invented right of the President to lock up whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted, for as long as he wanted, in defiance of anything resembling due process of law. Calling them “terrorists” was done simply to make the charade palatable, even, seemingly, “necessary.”
Whoever did 9/11, it wasn’t these guys.
Oh, yeah?
How about this guy?
Well, BooMan, we are at the cutting edge of our civilization. Do we maintain constitutional protections for our prisoners or do we take the road to barbarism? Nice choice courtesy of GW Bush and his merry band of fuck-ups.
I argue for the Constitution and the future rule of law. We are not terrorists, let the bastards walk. It is the right thing to do, however, difficult. If you want retaliation, go after that would be decider-dictator, George W. Bush. When it comes to dealing in death, the Guantanamo boys are amateurs compared to our president and his Neo-con group.
Nineteen of the 9/11 “plotters” are dead.
Oh yes, the other thing:
The Bush administration will defend itself with the reply “At least we kept them out of action.” Which assumes that the “them” in Guantanamo or rendered are the same “them” who were plotting additional attacks.
so here is the story. I have expressed to one of my daughters my growing “uneasiness” with what appears to be the O mans admin direction with regard to a number of things- gitmo being one. I promised to “wait and see” and I will keep my promise.HOWEVER- the gitmo situation is such a open reflection of the bush horror, and the idea that the incoming Pbama administration appears to be possibly dragging out what is the clear disgrace of the illegal incarcerations is causing me to face the potential for us all to being once agin being SCREWED.
I have questioned some of his appointments, I have felt a growing nervousness with some of quotes being offered regarding the sec of state designee regarding Hamas- to name just two.
Given what has taken place during the past 8 years, I have to ask- what have we bought? GITMO may well be the “canary in the mine” and ya know what? I hope that it is – sooner better than later. The answer is simple. The sign of true and lasting power arises not from military power but from communication. This country screwed up and I know that Obama won by promising a new way- not the same bull that got us where we are now!
The torture business and the detention in Guantanamo of many innocent people is a national disgrace. Bush and Co have managed to tarnish core values of our nation. And, now, we learn that even cases against the alleged guilty may have to be thrown out because of gross incompetence on the part of the Bush Administration.
You damn well right there ought to be an investigation of such incredible stupidity and blindness. What, did the Bush people due this on purpose? Were they in cahoots with the 9/11 terrorists to get their dearly beloved “Pearl Harbor” so they could launch their plan for the next American century?
Seriously, I don’t know what to believe any more in this upside down world we call the United States. Bankers going bust, GM hanging by a thread, unemployment spreading massively, the stock market tanking, and a candidate elected on a program of change who may be developing cold feet.
One last thought, can you imagine where we senior citizens would be if we had followed Bush’s program and invested our newly privatized Social Security funds in the stock market, should that program have made it into law? Total, unmitigated disaster. I think Republicans are a malignancy metastasizing through our body politic. Can we survive their baneful influence?
911 plotters?? I read the NYT piece – all the evidence against any of these guys that we know is from guess who? The Bush administration, who tortured the lot of em.
Maybe some of those guys are killers and maybe they’re ice cream vendors, WE WILL NEVER KNOW because anyone under torture will say anything. I haven’t even seen a shred of evidence that KSM is even in US custody, much less the “mastermind” of anything.
Every last prisoner needs to be let go ASAP, free and clear. If they’re bad guys that’s our bad for not prosecuting them correctly and fairly.
Pax
One thing Obama could do is appoint a Republican prosecutor and have him and her be in charge of all Guantanamo prosecutions. That way it would kind of remove the politics from the Obama administration. Make it an independent office.
Then when the prosecutor has to decline to file charges or file weak charges against only a handful of detainees then Obama can publicly blame the Bush administration.
And then America might see one reason to prosecute the torturers; torture leads to botched criminal cases.
But I say prosecute the torturers now. They have made America less safe and harmed its national security (in addition to committing crimes against humanity).