Trial Offer

It seems that Republican senators who wanted to reorganize the propaganda show trials military tribunals against Guantanamo detainees along lines similar to that already provided by the Uniform Code of Military Justice have received… “mixed signals” from the Bush Administration… which, surprise, surprise, wants Congress instead to rubber stamp the existing kangaroo court military commission structure, which has already been ruled unlawful in the Hamdan case.
As Bruce the Veep notes in forwarding this, given that Arlen Spector (Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman) has been as reliable a poodle to the President as Tony Blair has, brazenly looking the other way no matter how egregious the executive abuse, there seems little reason that the President won’t get what he wants on this.
Here’s hoping that Justices Stevens, Breyer, Ginsberg, Souter and Kennedy can hold on long enough to hear the next round of cases, stemming from this latest effort at judicial travesty. Somewhere in all of this, it seems forgotten that we the people will actually be safer if can ascertain that those accused of terrorist acts or war crimes are actually guilty… the court-martial system has, over time, proven a generally reliable means of doing that. But that’s not really the issue, is it? Far too many have been acquitted under that system, which means that the Bush Administration and Pentagon would look bad having, you know, picked up the wrong people.
And we can’t have that. In an election year, no less.