The Nation: Rigged Trials at Gitmo

[marmar]

article | posted February 20, 2008 (web only)
Rigged Trials at Gitmo
Ross Tuttle


Research support provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute.

Secret evidence. Denial of habeas corpus. Evidence obtained by waterboarding. Indefinite detention. The litany of complaints about the legal treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay is long, disturbing and by now familiar. Nonetheless, a new wave of shock and criticism greeted the Pentagon's announcement on February 11 that it was charging six Guantánamo detainees, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, with war crimes--and seeking the death penalty for all of them.

Now, as the murky, quasi-legal staging of the Bush Administration's military commissions unfolds, a key official has told The Nation that the trials are rigged from the start. According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantánamo's military commissions, the process has been manipulated by Administration appointees in an attempt to foreclose the possibility of acquittal.

Colonel Davis's criticism of the commissions has been escalating since he resigned this past October, telling the Washington Post that he had been pressured by politically appointed senior defense officials to pursue cases deemed "sexy" and of "high-interest" (such as the 9/11 cases now being pursued) in the run-up to the 2008 elections. Davis, once a staunch defender of the commissions process, elaborated on his reasons in a December 10, 2007, Los Angeles Times op-ed. "I concluded that full, fair and open trials were not possible under the current system," he wrote. "I felt that the system had become deeply politicized and that I could no longer do my job effectively."

Then, in an interview with The Nation in February after the six Guantánamo detainees were charged, Davis offered the most damning evidence of the military commissions' bias--a revelation that speaks to fundamental flaws in the Bush Administration's conduct of statecraft: its contempt for the rule of law and its pursuit of political objectives above all else. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080303/tuttle

[annabanana]

1. This trial will be the crowning turd in the diadem of shit

that IS this administration...

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Can't . . . have . . . acquittals . . .

That just about sums it all up.

[Hugabear]

3. Well duh.

Do you think administration this vile and corrupt is going to allow the possibility of their prized "terra" suspects being acquitted?

[Demeter]

4. You Would Think That Even Bush Would Fear Making Martyrs

but evidently, he'd rather have martyrs than live witnesses. If the poor idiot thinks he can murder all the people who know what he did, he's further impaired than anyone has speculated to date.

[ThomWV]

5. Secrete trials, secrete evidence, secrete executioners.

[hootinholler]

7. I knew all those secretions were gonna get messy!

:evilgrin:

:hi:

-Hoot

[hootinholler]

6. Right this way Herr K.! n/t

[marmar]

8. Achtung!

:scared:

[Jack Rabbit]

9. Any execution resulting from these trials is murder

When will the trials of senior Bush Regime members begin?