Obama embraced trouble he could have avoided by going this direction. The problem with this concept has always been that it sets up special courts outside the established American court system, both civil and military. And the new, alternative system is now facing the very same issues that the established systems have been dealing with for a couple of centuries. For instance:
"I don't think it’s going to make much of a difference," said Cmdr. Suzanne M. Lachelier of the Navy, the military lawyer for one of the detainees charged with coordinating the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "We're going to end up with trials with evidence that is the product of coercion and secret hearings."The result is justice delayed, justice denied. We've had defendants incarcerated for over seven years, some of them, without having had a trial to determine their guilt or innocence. They deserve due process. The public deserves to see the 9/11 perpetrators and any actual war criminals among the captives prosecuted honestly. He should have made a clean break and put these cases back into the regular civilian and military court system.
Tags: military commissions
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