In reversal of campaign promise, Obama to continue military tribunals

[Bluebear]

Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration will announce Friday that it will continue to use military commissions to prosecute some terrorism suspects, current and former officials said -- reversing a campaign promise to abolish the controversial tribunals started under President George W. Bush.

Human rights groups reacted with anger Thursday, arguing that any trials under the commissions would be widely viewed as tainted and that the Obama administration was duplicating Bush's mistakes.

The administration intends to try some of the detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in federal courts, as President Obama has pledged. But officials have concluded that some detainees can only be tried in military tribunals, said a U.S. official familiar with the changes.

Gabor Rona, the international legal director of Human Rights First, said the international community was unlikely to view the tribunals as legitimate.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-military-tribunal15-2009may15,0,4322036.story

[datasuspect]

1. and $97 billion more in war funding

change you can believe in.

[FLAprogressive]

2. *sigh* -- sitting back and waiting for the trusthimmers and the chessgamers

[ThomCat]

5. Yup, they'll claim he has superhuman intelligence and he's

somehow actually doing the opposit of what he appears to be doing. We mere mortals just don't have the intellect to understand it. :eyes:

[barbtries]

3. WTF!!

i'm so pissed right now.

[Mojambo]

4. The Bush/Cheney legacy is getting buffed and shined daily it seems. n/t

[Mari333]

6. deja vu. seen this movie before. nt

[ThomCat]

7. So, he continues the war, continues the torture, continues the tribunals,

continues the special unitary executive powers, continues the protection of the torturers, continues to shovel money into banks without attaching any controls or strings...

This is the change we were promised? :wtf:

By the time his term is done we're going to be exponentially farther in debt than where Bush left us, and we're going to have little, if anything positive to show for it. :(

[Deja Q]

13. Well, at least McCain isn't President. You can always go back in time; change your vote.

:shrug:

:(

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. Feels like we have gone back in time. That's the problem.

[ThomCat]

15. That's always a really stupid answer.

Ideally, we should have a president who does Good things, not even more bad things.

Wanting a president who does good things is NOT the same as wanting Bush or McCain. Unless YOU happen to be a Republican.

[Canuckistanian]

17. Wow. So Obama is the NEXT-TO-LAST choice

High praise indeed.

[Forkboy]

22. Not setting the bar very high there.

[readmoreoften]

24. If getting shit on or pissed on are my "choices" and I "choose" pissed on do I have

no right to complain because I "chose"?

[Bluebear]

38. Read downthread and laugh.

"My" headline was misleading. :rofl:

[tnlefty]

8. You're not supposed to notice.

Thom Hartmann and Bruce Fein had a good discussion about this and more on Thom's show today. If you missed it please try to catch a replay of it.

[Bluebear]

9. Sorry. I meant to post about the first family's favorite tuna salad recipe

:crazy:

[FLAprogressive]

20. don't forget the daily GD:P picture thread

[Bluebear]

23. How could I?

[John Q. Citizen]

10. There goes the equal protection clause. One law for some, another for others.

[cascadiance]

11. Hm... If so, when is the BIGGEST terrorist (Cheney) facing a military tribunal?!!!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. Wow, there it goes again. Damn tics.

[Canuckistanian]

16. OK, who's REALLY in charge here?

And what was their price?

This is getting ridiculous.

[lovuian]

18. more and more promise reversals

this is very sad

our government is on its way out

[JonLP24]

19. I don't support this

Is this a knee-jerk reaction? :shrug:

[OneBlueSky]

21. okay, now he's starting to piss me off . . .

I can understand his reluctance to come out solidly behind universal single payer healthcare . . . I can even understand his position on staying in Afghanistan . . . although I disagree with both, I'm willing to give him time to sort these out . . .

but this is unforgiveable . . . these are the tribunals where little things like habeus corpus -- a foundation of Western law since the Magna Carta -- are simply ignored . . . and there's not even a quasi-good reason for it . . .

if Obama doesn't change his mind on this, he's going to lose a lot of support on the left, and even in the middle . . .

[EFerrari]

25. Imo, it's too soon to call this one. I read (somewhere around here)

that this will apply to about 20 guys. Now, if what they get is a farce, maybe they can contest it on using humanitarian grounds.

[scheming daemons]

26. Someone please quote the campaign promise...

...because the only promise I can find is one in which he promises to "fix the flawed tribunal process".


One can argue that, with this action, he has done that.

[Bluebear]

27. Write the Los Angeles times, it's their article

[scheming daemons]

28. Except their headline doesn't say anything about a "Reversal of Campaign Promise"

Your OP is misleading.

[Bluebear]

30. 1. That's what the headline was when I posted it. 2. 'reversing a campaign promise'

is in the first sentence. 3. Get a hobby.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[scheming daemons]

37. I don't put anyone on ignore.... certainly not you.

And I've never alerted on anyone either.


Call me all the names you want.

Makes you look small, not me.

[rug]

29. Here's one, taken at random.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/13/MNL0V16B3.DTL

"Obama said the men should be tried either in a U.S. criminal court or by military court-martial, either of which would "demonstrate our commitment to the rule of law." Both those systems are more protective of defendants' rights than military tribunals, which allow evidence obtained through coercion and hearsay.

"Sen. John McCain of Arizona, front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, expressed no such reservations."

[scheming daemons]

31. "These trials are too important to be held in a flawed military commission system"

That's Obama quote in the article you linked.


A) That's not a campaign promise.

B) Obama is saying that his actions today make it no longer a "flawed" commission system. So even if you interpret it as a campaign promise, he's kept it.

[rug]

39. Given that it's a quote from February 2008, that's as clear a campaign promise as you'll see.

B) His new and improved tribunals still include hearsay which he explicitly opposed. You can take his statement as political rhetoric. I don't.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[KamaAina]

34. And another one's gone, and another one's gone, another one bites the dust

Hey! He's gonna promise you! Another one bites the dust...

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

35. I was willing to cut some slack

for a while, but this, taken with the apparent desire to "compromise" with Repukes on health care comes close to breaking this camel's back. This is a terrible, terrible decision. These slobs have been in detention for years and can't have any intelligence that is currently relevant or actionable. What the fuck do we have courts for in this country anyway?

[pinto]

40. Changes include banning evidence gained through coercion and limiting hearsay evidence.

The Obama administration contends its revisions would improve the system by banning the use of any evidence obtained through coercion and restricting the use of hearsay evidence.

The rule changes also will give detainees more latitude in choosing lawyers, the U.S. official said.

It seems the major objections from human rights groups is the "appearance" of unfairness in the process, not necessarily the results of the process.

Gabor Rona, the international legal director of Human Rights First, said military commission trials were unlikely to be seen as legitimate forms of justice.

"Everyone knows the military commissions have been a dismal failure," Rona said. "The results of the cases will be suspect around the world. It is a tragic mistake to continue them."

...

"I am afraid the stench of Guantanamo will remain," said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director of Human Rights Watch. "Anything that goes by the name 'military commissions' will unfortunately be seen around the world as a continuation of the old system. It is the worst of possible worlds."

Public pressure *remains* for the use of the federal court system.

Three retired senior officers who served in key positions in the military justice system wrote to Obama on Thursday in an attempt to derail a revival of the commissions. They warned against an "erosion of international confidence" in U.S. justice.

"Our federal criminal justice system has capably handled hundreds of complex terrorism cases . . . rendering decisions that are widely respected as legitimate," wrote retired Vice Adm. Lee F. Gunn, the former Navy inspector general; retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, the former Navy judge advocate general; and retired Brig. Gen. James P. Cullen, the former chief judge of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals.

And, to round out the issue as it seems to stand now, publicly at least, another 120 day moratorium and further review.

The administration also will announce an additional 120-day delay in commission trials, preventing legal proceedings from resuming until at least mid-September, the U.S. official said. The administration also would consider further changes recommended by lawmakers.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-military-tribunal15-2009may15,0,4322036.story?page=1

I don't think the final chapter on this has been written. ~ pinto