Since this won’t be reported in the news, here is the exchange between Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), and Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson. 07 Jul 09
quote:
Martinez: If we are doing Article III [civilian] trials...we then also are talking about closing Guantanamo by the end of the year. There's no way for 220-some-odd people to be prosecuted through some proceeding, whether Article III or military commissions, in that time frame. So where will they then be? I guess they'll be here. And what about those who are acquitted? Where do they go? What happens to them?
Johnson: You're correct. You can't prosecute some significant subset of 229 people before January. So those that we think are prosecutable and should be detained, we will continue to detain, whether it's at Guantanamo or someplace else. The question of what happens if there's an acquittal...I think that as a matter of legal authority, if you have the authority under the laws of war to detain someone...it is true irrespective of what happens on the prosecution side.
Martinez: So therefore the prosecution becomes a moot point?
Johnson: Oh no, I'm not saying that at all. You raised the issue of what happens if there's an acquittal, and in my judgment, as a matter of legal authority...if a review panel has determined this person is a security threat...and should not be released, if for some reason he is not convicted for a lengthy prison sentence, then as a matter of legal authority I think it's our view that we would have the ability to detain him.
http://armed-services.senate.g.../07-07-09Webcast.htmSo the Obama administration is all for due process, as long as it produces the correct result. Obama already has said that Guantanamo detainees who cannot be successfully tried by military commissions or civilian courts can still be imprisoned indefinitely if they are considered too dangerous to release. Now Johnson is saying that even those who are prosecuted can be kept imprisoned
regardless of the verdict. The only point of prosecuting them, it seems, is to create an impression of due process while
continuing the Bush detention policies that Obama condemned during the campaign. Obama may even be retreating on his promise to close Guantanamo by January, his most dramatic departure from Bush's detention policies. Note that Johnson said "we will continue to detain" prisoners who can't be prosecuted by January, "whether it's at Guantanamo or someplace else."
Although missing the deadline would be important symbolically, the location of imprisonment has always been less important than its justification, especially since the Obama administration is laying the groundwork for treating anyone suspected of ties to terrorism, no matter where he is arrested/captured or what his nationality is, as an enemy combatant subject to indefinite detention, whether or not he gets a trial and even if he is acquitted.
Everything Obama says has a expiration date. Whether it is tonight, tomorrow or next week. You can count on him not to keep his word.
Can someone that voted for “the one” tell me how this is a “change” from GWB? LOL
Joe
Without data, you’re just another guy with an opinion.
