Time for a change in war crimes trials

[unhappycamper]

Time for a change in war crimes trials
By Robert F. Dorr

Our reputation has been soiled by the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Navy base in Cuba, where we’ve held hundreds of suspected war criminals for many years. None is being treated in accordance with Geneva Convention protections for prisoners of war. Under former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. abandoned the convention for people captured in Afghanistan, while retaining it, at least officially, for people captured in Iraq.

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In 2001, the administration began planning military war crimes trials, called military commissions, at Guantanamo.

Altogether about a thousand prisoners — called “detainees” by the administration — have been held at Gitmo. Several hundred are there now. Yet only one military commission has been completed. Prisoner David Hicks was offered a choice that amounted to a no-brainer: He could continue to rot at Gitmo while his legal case festered, or he could plead guilty to war crimes and be sent home to his native Australia. Hicks chose the obvious and his case is the only one that has proceeded to a conclusion by a military commission.

~snip~

The dustup between Davis and Hartmann is only the latest evidence that it is time to abandon the botched scheme for military commissions. We should hold trials of ordinary prisoners of war publicly and openly. We should prosecute true war criminals under our civil legal system.

And the camp at Guantanamo? We should burn it to the ground.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/community/opinion/airforce_backtalk_crime_052608/