Posted by
Andrews on Friday, November 20, 2009 4:39:08 PM
Has anyone noticed that Obama & co. have been riding roughshod over our Constitution? No, not the in the usual ways, nationalized health care, cap and trade, and so on. I mean in their constant declarations that Kalid Sheik Muhammad and the others about to be tried are not only guilty but certain to be executed. Were a state executive to say the same about any defendant in any trial, the media and the ACLU would be all over them, calling for investigations into the misconduct of said executive. However, Obama is basically declaring that the executive has presumed guilt, and not a peep.
One other questions comes to mind, if they only try these few because they are sure of guilty verdicts, don't the other detainees at Guantanamo have a fairly good habeas corpus case, arguing that the only reason they weren't granted trials is because the administration is unsure of the verdict? I doubt Obama and company even considered that, but once you start saying terrorists are just criminals who deserve trials, don't you have to do it for all of them? How can he justify trying the "slam dunk" cases and not the rest? Seems a clever lawyer might have a nice little case there.
Of course there is the final worry. Despite Obama's, and Holder's, claims, there is no such thing as a legal certainty. You can have DNA and a bloody glove and still lose the case. And as the administration has pretty much admitted Bush "tortured" and that treatment Guantanamo was illegally severe, it seems there may be many procedural challenges, not to mention that soldiers do no arrest, and military questioning is not conducted in a manner which meets legal muster, precisely because the military captures, and does not arrest.("
Somehow The Media Missed This", "
Questions Raised by Boumedine", "
Confirmation, If It Is True") So it seems there may be many evidentiary challenges. And, if they succeed, then what becomes of the "slam dunk". And worse, what become of these terrorists?
I wrote before that I thought Nuremburg was a bad precedent ("
Goodbye Geneva", "
Why Nuremberg?", "
Last Thought on the Topic"), as one should not try the losing side in a war, but this is just as bad. You do not try enemy combatants, in or out of uniform, you detain them until the war ends. What if Muhammad is found guilty, but not sentenced to death? Will he be up for parole? Will he eventually walk? And then what? These are the questions I feel Obama is not asking. In his rush to get in the good graces of liberals and European intellectuals, he is putting our country in danger, jeopardizing American lives, and risking the release of the remaining terrorists held in Guantanamo, and he doesn't even seem to realize it.