President Obama is planning on Friday to resume the Bush administration’s controversial military tribunal system for some Guantanamo detainees — which he suspended in his first week in office — according to three administration officials.
Some of the high-profile terror suspects who are being charged in the tribunal process include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
The administration officials stressed that the updated system will include expanded due-process rights for the suspects, which administration officials note is consistent with what Obama pushed for as a senator in 2006 in order to improve upon the widely criticized approach created by the Bush administration.
The move could increase tensions with liberal groups, led by the ACLU, which are already furious about Obama’s shift this week to block the release of photos showing prisoners allegedly being abused by U.S. personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Two of the administration officials said the president will also leave open the option of starting civilian trials on U.S. soil for some of the detainees. But that, too, is a fiercely debated issue on Capitol Hill because of concerns by lawmakers in both parties about where the terror suspects will be kept during such trials.
Obama suspended the tribunals by signing an executive order on his third day in office, the same day he signed an order closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, and said his administration would conduct a 120-day review of the process. That review comes due next week.
“The message that we are sending around the world is that the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism,” Obama said on January 22. “And we are going to do so vigilantly, we are going to do so effectively, and we are going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals.”
Eager to head off criticism from liberals, administration officials note that during the 2006 Senate debate over the Military Commissions Act, Obama called the Bush administration’s approach “sloppy” and pushed for another version of the legislation with enhanced rights for detainees.
“Instead, we have rushed through a bill that stands a good chance of being challenged once again in the Supreme Court,” Obama said on the Senate floor on September, 28, 2006. “This is not how a serious administration would approach the problem of terrorism.”
(Source: CNN)
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5 Responses
Good Morning President Obama
Glad you woke up from your misguided dream.
Now you see that perhaps the Bush Administration knew what it was doing.
Comment for everyone else…candidates, while they are still candidates spout off senselessly…once they learn the inside story they speak differently.
Good luck with more such re-awakenings.
Let the aclu and the rest of those self hating americans terrorist simpasizers drop dead.the obama administration is finally realizing the only option is the president Bush way.
Well what do you know? He finally developed some sechel after all these years and with a diploma from an Ivy League college no less!
It would be much easier to declare that they are “prisoners of war” (in effect, waive the “unlawful combatant” objection), and hold them for the “duration” of hostilities. If they argue they weren’t combatants at all (e.g. “I was a book peddler selling Islamic books to soldiers”), then there should be a trial (or turn them over to their country of origin, typically Saudi Arabia, which would give them a very short trial and lock them up or shoot them).
They aren’t criminals, and more than any soldier is a criminal. They were motivated by the desire to defeat an enemy, not money or greed. Courts are for criminal. The Geneva convention allows the US to hold them until the war is over, which will be a very long time.
The problem is the US has too many lawyers running things.
by the end of his first (and hopefully only) term, we’ll be back to all of the Bush administration’s policies!