This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/4025
July 23, 2009
Team Obama Set To Destroy Military Tribunals
July 22, 2009 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Eric Holder's DOJ has come up with an interim report [see, http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/documents/preliminary-rpt-dptf-072009.pdf] by the Detention Policy Task Force that will provide additional ammunition for critics of Obama's retreat on the war on Islamic terror.
The 5 page document indicates that though the president has previously indicated, to the chagrin of many of his supporters, that military commissions will continue to have a place in the administration's terror tool kit [inadequate as it may be] the process will be amended to the point where the rights extended to America's enemies in these proposed tribunals, will so mimic those guaranteed to U.S. citizens that the military hearings will mirror criminal court proceedings in nearly every way, excepting the mandate to Mirandize terrorists which this report seems to dismiss - shockingly, not because foreign terrorists aren't deserving of Constitutional protections - but that as the brief memo states, only because they might be "impractical and dangerous."
Text below:
"These rule changes prohibit the admission of statements obtained through cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; provide detainees greater latitude in the choice of counsel; afford basic protection for those defendants who refuse to testify; reform the use of hearsay by putting the burden on the party trying to use the statement; and make clear that military judges may determine their own jurisdiction. Each of these changes enhances the fairness and the legitimacy of the commission process without compromising our ability to bring terrorists to justice."
The conclusion reached by the task force and represented by the above findings represents the death knell for the military tribunal process, removing the one extraordinary judicial tool remaining between people like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and full access to the U.S. courts and the privileges heretofore only extended to American citizens. http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=tribunal7.22.09%2Ehtm
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/4025