Gitmo Show Trial And Tell
What do you call a trial where the outcome is rigged from the inception? If you're a right-winger and obsessed with keeping Guantanamo Bay open, it's called a military commission.
What do you call a trial where the outcome is rigged from the inception? If you're a right-winger and obsessed with keeping Guantanamo Bay open, it's called a military commission.
Balakrishnan Rajagopal | Posted 12.15.2009 | World
As regressive policies connected to Guantanamo have continued and as the president defends the right to wage 'just war', worries are growing that he may not be a transformational president in human rights terms after all.
Andy Worthington | Posted 12.08.2009 | Politics
orris Davis, the retired Air Force Colonel who served as the Chief Prosecutor of the Military Commissions at Guantánamo until 2007, has just lost his job for writing an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.
Stephen Paul Smith | Posted 11.18.2009 | Politics
Military commissions were created under Bush to circumvent legal protections. Under Obama, the underlying purpose remains the same. The new commissions offer little hope for swift and decisive justice.
Craig Alan Silverman | Posted 11.16.2009 | Denver
The government's easier path toward execution is through a tribunal, and yet Holder has chosen the risky path of seeking the death penalty in New York. This is political correctness run amok.
Talat Hamdani | Posted 10.20.2009 | Politics
The military commissions, which will continue to be tainted by the dark legacy of Guantánamo, will always be doubted and cannot achieve the justice that 9/11 family members and all Americans deserve.
Andy Worthington | Posted 10.09.2009 | Politics
Lt. Col. David Frakt said Congress is still behaving unconstitutionally with regard to the right of the Executive branch and the Judiciary to order the release of prisoners from Guantanamo.
David Danzig | Posted 10.08.2009 | World
More than seven years after U.S. forces picked up a 15-year-old boy in a remote Afghan town, the government appears to be on the verge of deciding where to give him his day in court.
Human Rights First | Posted 11.24.2009 | Politics
Although the judge granted the Obama Administration's request, he also did not fail to take note that the government was seeking its third delay in connection with events that occurred nine years ago.
Andy Worthington | Posted 11.22.2009 | Politics
Scarcely in its history has the United States entertained such a shabby and shamelessly politicized travesty of justice as the Military Commissions.
Andy Worthington | Posted 11.18.2009 | World
Following Judge Kollar-Kotelly's ruling, the DOJ did not indicate whether it will appeal the decision, but I sincerely hope that the government follows the judge's advice and repatriates al-Rabia.
Andy Worthington | Posted 08.31.2009 | World
I still have no firm idea why Obama and Holder have allowed the Justice Department to pursue unjustifiable and unwinnable habeas cases, resulting in humiliation after humiliation.
David Danzig | Posted 08.27.2009 | Politics
Could President Obama and the U.S. Congress transform a deeply flawed legal process -- struck down, at one time by the Supreme Court -- into one that acted like a real court?
Andy Worthington | Posted 08.18.2009 | Politics
With no visible progress this was another dismal outing for the Commissions, and another warning for the Obama administration that any kind of revival of the wretched trial system will remain fraught with insoluble problems.
David Danzig | Posted 08.17.2009 | Politics
The judge and the attorneys labored as best they could under a system that is constantly evolving. But many were left wondering if such a complex case might be better off in a more mature setting.
Andy Worthington | Posted 08.11.2009 | Politics
Lt. Col. Vandeveld said, "I simply could not in good conscience continue to work for an ad-hoc, hastily created apparatus whose evident resort to expediency and ethical compromise were so contrary to my own."
Amnesty International | Posted 08.09.2009 | World
Last month, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani became the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be brought to the United States for trial outside of the military commission system.
Andy Worthington | Posted 08.08.2009 | Politics
A legal quagmire that lacks legitimacy and maintains key policies of the Bush administration's "War on Terror" is almost too awful to contemplate.
Andy Worthington | Posted 08.02.2009 | Politics
The government will not use any statements made by the suspect in secret prisons, nor will the evidence "be very different" from that used when his alleged co-conspirators were tried by the federal court in 2001.
Marjorie Cohn | Posted 06.26.2009 | Politics
Obama's capitulation to the intelligence gurus and the right-wing attack dogs will not only imperil the rule of law; it will actually make us more vulnerable to future acts of terrorism.
Andy Worthington | Posted 06.21.2009 | Politics
Look at the sentence, "Hold[ing] individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war," replace "an act of war" with "any crime," and you will realize why the proposed policy is so terrifying.
Martin Garbus | Posted 06.19.2009 | Politics
The real reason Obama is giving in on military commissions because of resistance by local communities to house these defendants.
Andy Worthington | Posted 06.19.2009 | World
It is difficult to see how much of the "evidence" against the Gitmo prisoners can be anything other than a tissue of lies extracted through torture, coercion, bribery and exploitation.
The Huffington Post | Posted 06.15.2009 | Politics
The White House released a statement Friday afternoon clarifying the president's position on the use of military tribunals: Statement of President Ba...
Washington Post | Peter Finn | Posted 06.09.2009 | Politics
The Obama administration is preparing to revive the system of military commissions established at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, under new rules that would off...
Danielle Celena Belton | Posted 12.17.2009 | Politics