May 10, 2008, Kangaroo Wrangler Wrung
And so, Navy Capt. Allred, currently chief kangaroo judge of the GTMO-based proceeding to dispense kangaroo justice at the military commission "trial" of former OBL motor pool member (and occasional chauffeur) Salim Hamdan, has decided to exclude Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann from any further role in the prosecution, on the basis for Col. Morris "Moe" Davis's earlier testimony about the unseemly political pressure placed upon Davis as prosecutor by Hartmann.
We're not at all sure what this means either, as it is not clear what Hartmann's role as advisor to "convening authority" Susan Crawford (a/k/a "Dick Cheney's handmaiden") has to do with the nitty gritty of specifically prosecuting this one particular rube (for the high crime of "beating the Bush Administration before the Supreme Court".)
In the end, Congress had already thought about how we would try suspected war criminals, by providing for such trials either in federal courts or before military courts martial. So there was no need for the improvised house of cards that was eventually constructed... except, of course, for the political pressure not to have any acquittals (lest the Bush Administration be revealed as somehow imperfect), which meant that it was necessary to permit evidence obtained by torture, hearsay, or if necessary, no evidence at all, and to have a civilian overlord available to declare the suspect guilty no matter what, and of course, even if acquitted, to give the Bush Administration the ability to continue to hold on to the suspect.
Which leads to the absurd results we see now, such as an "exclusion" of the apparent head of the prosecuting office from what would be scheduled to be the very first actual prosecution (not counting Hicks' plea, which after all, got him sprung.) And none of this reassures the rest of the world that we stand by the rule of law, nor does it do anything to insure anyone other than the dumbest Americans that terrorists actually responsible for attacking the United States are being brought to justice in any meaningful way.
I know, I know: picky, picky, picky...