Obama Revives Military Tribunals

@oralloy,

Yeah...however, this time it appears they may follow due and lawful process.

What's your beef?

1 Reply

@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

Yeah...however, this time it appears they may follow due and lawful process.

The Bush tribunals were also going to follow a due and lawful process.

dlowan wrote:

What's your beef?

Mostly I just thought it was a story of interest.

I guess if it were up to me, all the trials would take place in ordinary courts martial, and if there were any cases that couldn't be tried in an ordinary court martial, I'd just label them POWs and detain them until the end of the war.

But I don't really object to the notion of special military tribunals.

3 Replies

@oralloy,

Quote:

The Bush tribunals were also going to follow a due and lawful process.

Haha. Good one.

How'd those tribunals turn out, which were 'going to' follow a due and lawful process? If I recall, they had to keep being rescheduled, because the judges and lawyers involved kept complaining that the process was not due or lawful.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

The Bush tribunals were also going to follow a due and lawful process.

Not according to the military's own lawyers, who advocated proper process such as contained in normal military tribunals, and often spoke out about the Bush/Rumsfeld travesties.

I don't think many have objections to the use of normal tribunals, when Obama has restored them to their previous form.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

The Bush tribunals were also going to follow a due and lawful process.

No they were not. Luckily the SC struck down most of their decisions so this administration will have no choice but follow some due process laws. Not so sure they would have done so otherwise given their decisions to date in this regard have been largely disappointing.

Quote:

WASHINGTON " The framework under which detainees were imprisoned for years without charges at Guantanamo and in many cases abused in Afghanistan wasn't the product of American military policy or the fault of a few rogue soldiers.

It was largely the work of five White House, Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers who, following the orders of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, reinterpreted or tossed out the U.S. and international laws that govern the treatment of prisoners in wartime, according to former U.S. defense and Bush administration officials.

The Supreme Court now has struck down many of their legal interpretations. It ruled last Thursday that preventing detainees from challenging their detention in federal courts was unconstitutional.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38886.html

"Enemy Combatants" still detained without due process under Obama Administration

The phrase talking the talk but not the walk (however it goes) comes to mind. I was further dismayed to learn Obama is considering not letting the photos of the tortures to be shown.

United States not to release torture pictures

I see no big improvement in this administration from the last myself.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Oralloy wrote:
The Bush tribunals were also going to follow a due and lawful process.

Haha. Good one.

How'd those tribunals turn out, which were 'going to' follow a due and lawful process? If I recall, they had to keep being rescheduled, because the judges and lawyers involved kept complaining that the process was not due or lawful.

There was one malcontent who kept delaying and stuff, but he was removed from the process finally.

The main reason they were delayed is because Bush originally set them up by decree, and that eventually went to the Supreme Court, which threw them out on the basis that Bush doesn't have the power to create law by decree. Then everyone had to start over with Congress passing a law setting up a new tribunal system.

0 Replies

@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

Oralloy wrote:
The Bush tribunals were also going to follow a due and lawful process.

Not according to the military's own lawyers, who advocated proper process such as contained in normal military tribunals, and often spoke out about the Bush/Rumsfeld travesties.

Depends on the lawyer in question. Many of the defense lawyers were spewing nonsense (which was probably in the interest of their clients so was the right thing for a defense lawyer to do). But nonsense is still nonsense.

dlowan wrote:

I don't think many have objections to the use of normal tribunals, when Obama has restored them to their previous form.

These will not be normal tribunals. Obama is doing some minor tweaking so his supporters can pretend he has made some big change. But they are pretty much the same tribunals that would have occurred under Bush.

A normal tribunal would be a regular court martial.

0 Replies

@revel,

revel wrote:

Oralloy wrote:
The Bush tribunals were also going to follow a due and lawful process.

No they were not.

That is incorrect. They were set up according to a set of rules that gave them due process.

revel wrote:

Luckily the SC struck down most of their decisions so this administration will have no choice but follow some due process laws.

The only thing the Supreme Court struck down regarding these military tribunals was the notion that Bush could "create law by decree".

The system that Bush had created by decree had rules of due process.

The system that Congress set up after Bush's "decree" was struck down also had rules of due process.

The system that Obama will use will be much the same.

revel wrote:

Quote:
WASHINGTON " The framework under which detainees were imprisoned for years without charges at Guantanamo and in many cases abused in Afghanistan wasn't the product of American military policy or the fault of a few rogue soldiers.

It was largely the work of five White House, Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers who, following the orders of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, reinterpreted or tossed out the U.S. and international laws that govern the treatment of prisoners in wartime, according to former U.S. defense and Bush administration officials.

The Supreme Court now has struck down many of their legal interpretations. It ruled last Thursday that preventing detainees from challenging their detention in federal courts was unconstitutional.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38886.html

That isn't exactly what the Supreme Court ruled. They said Combatant Status Review Tribunals did not provide enough due process, and so allowed challenges to go forward in federal court.

However, that would not have precluded the government from setting up an alternate system to keep them out of federal court so long as that alternate system had a satisfactory amount of due process.

What the Supreme Court was striking down there also came from Congress, not from White House lawyers. And it was not related to military war crimes tribunals, but rather to the process of detaining enemy combatants without charge.

revel wrote:

"Enemy Combatants" still detained without due process under Obama Administration

Yes. I made a thread mocking Obama when he announced that he was doing away with the term "enemy combatant" but still intended to detain them until the end of the war.

(He is certainly right to detain captured enemy soldiers until the end of the war, but his trying to pretend he was making some big move by not using the term "enemy combatant" was a little silly.)

revel wrote:

I see no big improvement in this administration from the last myself.

Well, we are still at war. We still have to do something with the enemy soldiers we capture.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

That is incorrect. They were set up according to a set of rules that gave them due process

Let me guess, their right because Bush made them right. lol, this argument fools no one but the faithful choir it sings to.

Condi Rice: Because Bush Did It, Torture Wasn't Illegal

1 Reply

@revel,

revel wrote:

"Oralloy" wrote:
That is incorrect. They were set up according to a set of rules that gave them due process

Let me guess, their right because Bush made them right. lol,

No. They have due process because when Congress passes the law authorizing the tribunals, Congress included due process in their rules.

Unless you refer to the earlier tribunal system that Bush tried to create by decree. Those had due process because Bush made them have due process.

revel wrote:

this argument fools no one but the faithful choir it sings to.

The nice thing about pointing out the truth is I don't have any need to fool anyone.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Congress rushed through from the pressure of the Bush adminstration to approve those rules Bush wanted in place. They are not anymore right than when Bush wanted to "decree" it on his own as though he was King George of England.

Obama seems to be adding more rights, but in general I have been sorely disappointed in Obama in this direction.

1 Reply

@revel,

revel wrote:

Congress rushed through from the pressure of the Bush adminstration to approve those rules Bush wanted in place.

Well, they didn't give Bush exactly what he wanted.

Bush wanted secret evidence. McCain took that out.

Bush didn't ask to repeal habeas corpus. McCain put it in.

revel wrote:

They are not anymore right than when Bush wanted to "decree" it on his own as though he was King George of England.

Actually, Congress has every right to pass laws. That's their job.

revel wrote:

Obama seems to be adding more rights,

"Seems" being the operative word. The rights in question existed under Bush.

revel wrote:

but in general I have been sorely disappointed in Obama in this direction.

We do have to do something with the captured enemy soldiers.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

The rights in question existed under Bush.

Some of those rights Obama wants added were not there if you read the article you left a link to.

Quote:

Actually, Congress has every right to pass laws. That's their job.

Of course it is Congresses job to pass laws. Just because Congress passes laws don't mean the laws they pass have merit.

Quote:

Bush wanted secret evidence. McCain took that out.

Bush didn't ask to repeal habeas corpus. McCain put it in.

I am glad McCain led the way for those things. Don't really know, but I'll take your word for it.

Quote:

We do have to do something with the captured enemy soldiers.

I agree, they should be tried and found either guilty or not guilty of being connected to AQ and sentenced accordingly. See, not so hard. (regardless of what Obama or any other democrat thinks, so if you bring that up...)

I think we are starting repeat ourselves, being on opposites sides of the issue, you can probably write what I am going to say before you read it, so consider it said if your being sincere and not try to joke around by saying I would say something like, "they should be held until such time as the war over..." knowing that I wouldn't say that because the war will never be completely over because there is always the chance militant extremist will become militant towards our country.

1 Reply

@revel,

revel wrote:

oralloy wrote:
The rights in question existed under Bush.

Some of those rights Obama wants added were not there if you read the article you left a link to.

The trouble is, those rights were already there under Bush.

In the case of the restrictions on hearsay Obama is tweaking the right to make it slightly stronger. (I presume he is making a similar sort of "tweak" on the restrictions on coerced evidence, but haven't seen the details yet.)

But the main point of these tweaks seems to be more so Obama can pretend he is doing something radically different from the Bush tribunals. They aren't a huge change.

That doesn't mean these new tribunals will be "bad". It is more a case of the Bush tribunals having been wrongly demonized as bad, so now Obama has to pretend he is making a big change in order for people to realize that the tribunals won't actually be bad.

revel wrote:

oralloy wrote:
Bush wanted secret evidence. McCain took that out.

Bush didn't ask to repeal habeas corpus. McCain put it in.

I am glad McCain led the way for those things. Don't really know, but I'll take your word for it.

You probably aren't glad that McCain led the way on repealing habeas corpus for the detainees.

There are legal bloggers that linked the drafts of the bill back when it is going through Congress. If the links are still there I can try to show the paper trail showing how the habeas corpus repeal thing came from the Senate and not from Bush.

Might be later today before I get the links scraped together though.

revel wrote:

oralloy wrote:
We do have to do something with the captured enemy soldiers.

I agree, they should be tried and found either guilty or not guilty of being connected to AQ and sentenced accordingly. See, not so hard. (regardless of what Obama or any other democrat thinks, so if you bring that up...)

It's hard if they are not guilty of anything. Being an enemy soldier isn't necessarily a crime.

revel wrote:

I think we are starting repeat ourselves, being on opposites sides of the issue, you can probably write what I am going to say before you read it, so consider it said if your being sincere and not try to joke around by saying I would say something like, "they should be held until such time as the war over..." knowing that I wouldn't say that because the war will never be completely over because there is always the chance militant extremist will become militant towards our country.

The war will be over. Our enemies are not invulnerable.

There are only four key al-Qa'ida targets left:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saif_al-Adel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_Ahmed_Abdullah

0 Replies

Obama Revives Military Tribunals

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know