The Department of Defense is ready to proceed with military trials of detained "terrorist suspects" when President George W. Bush gives the green light, American officials said.
| After which we may "kill them"... |
The Pentagon has, in effect, issued a set of eight instructions that would cover the conduct of any military commissions or tribunals that could be used to try the foreign detainees, including al-Qaeda suspects, at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. They include administrative procedures, the responsibilities of the prosecutors and defence counsels and sentencing, and they list the crimes which might be tried, including terrorism, hijacking and hostage-taking. "Eight military commission instructions that the general counsel of the Department of the Defense has issued . . . were prepared as part of the process to be ready in case the President decides that it's appropriate to try any captured enemy combatants by military commission," one official told Agence France-Presse (AFP). "The defendant in a military commission will always have a military defense counsel, a JAG (judge advocate general), who will have access to all classified information. The civilian defense counsel may or may not have access to all classified information, depending on the level and sensitivity of the information."
| The lefties and the moral hemophiliacs are going to bitch and moan about this, if and when it's put into effect. But they've been bitching and moaning about the very existence of Guantanamo. We're damned if we keep 'em without doing anything, damned if we do anything... |
Another official sought to draw a distinction between a military commission and a court martial. "Courts martial have historically been used primarily for good order and discipline of our armed forces," he said. "Military commissions have been used for perhaps a wider variety of things. But in every case of a war crimes trial, violation of the laws of war, historically the United States has used military commissions... Military commissions are usually associated with times of armed conflict."
| Our own soldiers get court martialed — the Uniform Code of Military Justice is the military's internal law book. Unlawful combatants get a trial by military commission, and the UCMJ doesn't come into it. |
The instructions for the commissions were established a month after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington , when Bush signed a decree on "the detention, treatment and trial of certain non-citizens in the war on terrorism." The commissions could sit in the United States or abroad, theoretically including the U.S. Marine base at Guantanamo where more than 650 alleged Taliban and al-Qaeda members have been held since January 2002 without trial. Unlike courts martial, the military tribunals would be held in public. Officials said the rules would not apply to Iraqis arrested during the war in Iraq, except for "international terrorists captured in Iraq." |