Military Tribunals Allowed to Restart

Finally, and thankfully, the GITMO detainees may now go forward to the military tribunals.

A Guantanamo detainee who once was Osama bin Laden's driver can be tried by military tribunal, a federal appeals court ruled Friday, apparently clearing the way for the Pentagon to resume trials suspended when a lower court ruled the procedures unlawful.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled unanimously against Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni.

More broadly it said that the 1949 Geneva Convention governing prisoners of war does not apply to al-Qaida and its members. That supports a key assertion of the Bush administration, which has faced international criticism for holding hundreds of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay without full POW protections.

Federal Appeals court made this decision. That means only one step higher if it's challenged. The lawyers provided the expected rhetoric.

Two lawyers representing Hamdan, Georgetown University law professor Neal Katyal and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles D. Swift, said the appeals court ruling "is contrary to 200 years of constitutional law."

"Today's ruling places absolute trust in the president, unchecked by the Constitution, statutes of Congress and long-standing treaties ratified by the Senate of the United States," the two defense lawyers said in a statement.

"Unchecked by the Constitution" is an interesting point of view considering these dolts just received this finding from one of the highest courts in the country. I'm betting the judges did a little checking against the constitution here. Oh, let's not forget that they also likely looked at those Senate ratified treaties and found them non-applicable.

Oh and let's not leave out the human rights activists. Can't leave them silent on an issue even if they are wrong.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, a critic of the commissions, said the Pentagon would be better off using the normal courts-martial process under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

"By permitting trials before military commissions, the court gave the administration enough rope to hang itself," Roth said. "That's because, as currently conceived, the military commissions are deeply flawed."

Hang itself? In what way I wonder. I'm sure Roth would have had the same of opinion at the end of WWII.

And not to be out done, we have the Center of Constitutional Rights has to spit out the same old tired argument that just doesn't follow.

One of the leading critics of the Pentagon's military commissions, the Center for Constitutional Rights, called Friday's ruling "misguided" and said it could have an impact beyond the status of Hamdan.

"The ramifications of the decision may be enormous in terms of the danger created for U.S. soldiers stationed abroad," it said. "If the United States does not use fair and just procedures that guarantee military detainees due process protections in the 'war on terror,' no other country will feel the need to do so either."

So they are still assuming that the terrorists out there will provide our soldiers with "fair and just procedures." Funny, the US is going to actually give them a trial. Not that they are being tried with the rights of an American citizens, which they don't deserve. Maybe we should treat them as they treat captured civilian contractors. You know, cut off their heads and video tape the activity to broadcast to the world. Is this the rope they would prefer?

Why don't these people ever have a grip on reality?