Posted on 01/09/2010 12:10:04 AM PST by American Dream 246
Via JWF, the canary in the coal mine keels over.
In a ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan also said the government failed to establish that 23 statements the detainee made to interrogators at Guantanamo Bay were untainted by the earlier coerced statements made while he was held under harsh conditions in Afghanistan.
However, the judge said statements he made during two military administrative hearings at the U.S. detention center in Cuba, where he was assisted by a personal representative, were reliable and sufficient to justify holding the detainee…
The logical inference from the record, said the judge, is that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay reviewed Al Madhwani’s coerced confessions with him and asked him to make identical confessions…
Despite Hogan’s concerns about the 23 statements, the judge relied on other evidence and three statements Al Madhwani made to a military tribunal and a review board to conclude that he trained, traveled and associated with members of al-Qaida, including high-level operatives. On those grounds, the judge ruled he is legally detained.
Ace is angry but I think he’s forgetting that Obama has basically rigged these trials from the get-go with his two-tiered approach to detainees. Remember? When he’s got a bunch of evidence on someone such that the confession is basically unnecessary, they go to federal court so that The One can boast about due process. When he doesn’t have much evidence besides the confession, they go to a military tribunal so that the confession can be admitted into evidence and he can boast about the eventual conviction.
It’s a sham, and it’s crowned by the fact that he’s all but promised to keep dangerous detainees imprisoned even if they’re acquitted, but that’s the game he’s decided he wants to play.
Frankly, we could use more of these test cases before the KSM trial gets going: If he and Holder miscalculate and end up sending some low-level jihadi to federal court on the assumption that they can get a conviction even if the confession’s thrown out, and then the defendant is freed, the uproar will be such that he’ll have to rethink his whole stupid KSM strategy.
I have appeared before Hogan, he is a good judge, but he has to follow federal rules of criminal procedure and federal court precedent for these trials.
The fallacy of civilian trials for enemy combatants will soon become crystal clear to all. Maybe if Congress turns over in 2010 a new law can be passed mandating military tribunals. I thought we had that already after 9/11 but I guess not
Hopefully more of something like this starts happening so people can understand how totally inappropriate it was to attempt to try enemy combatants as criminals in [civilian] federal criminal courts.
Best would be if some judge simply tossed the case out, properly claiming lack of jurisdiction.
That would send the right message to everyone and create a mad scramble among WH and DoJ lawyers on what to do next, and which “Gitmo” to use next.
I think it is already crystal clear to all except die-hard idiots who’d rather side with the terrorists.
Do you think this may be payback for all the Arab/Muslim monies which were funneled thru to his election cofferes??
Certainly would make sense, that with his muslim roots as well...and that he wants to make nice with the Arabs...
he only serves in DC for 4 yrs so he’ll be looking for work on the world stage and will do nothing as Pres. that will even remotely harm the relationships in the Mid-East.
Do you think this may be payback for all the Arab/Muslim monies which were funneled thru to his election cofferes??
Certainly would make sense, that with his muslim roots as well...and that he wants to make nice with the Arabs...
he only serves in DC for 4 yrs so he’ll be looking for work on the world stage and will do nothing as Pres. that will even remotely harm the relationships in the Mid-East.
Blame Holder and 0bama equally. They are equally evil forces in this case. They are toxic to America and American values. We can’t get rid of these turds soon enough in 2010 and 2112 elections
How soon we forget! In all fairness to Bush, whom I certainly did not agree with on all issues, every step of the way in detaining and trying these people was fought tooth and nail by the Democrats and the left. It’s a wonder we even got Gitmo open and got to use it for awhile.
About 1 month after 9/11, Bush stopped getting any support from the Dems on national security. For some reason, the Dems became more and more openly America-hating, following the lead of people like Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan, and became “truthers” as a party. Islamic terrorism was all our fault, we were being mean, our military was evil, it wasn’t fair to these poor little babies to try them in military trials, etc. And because the press was egging them on, magnifying every American misstep and inventing ones that didn’t happen, Bush lost popular support in fighting Islamic terrorism.
I have always felt that the very success that he did have actually enabled people to minimize the whole threat. But Bush’s anti-terrorist policies never got credit for our safety; instead, it was because the threat was illusory, according to the press, all a product of Bush’s fevered right-wing brain.
Well, now with a radical America-hating, Muslim-supporting leftist in the WH, and protections being stripped away every day, we are seeing exactly how “illusory” the threat was. The threat has absolutely blossomed in the last year.
If it had been up to Bush, these people would have been tried and taken care of (hopefully, done away with) a long time ago.
what the heck happens to “witnesses” in these trials? who protects them from terrorists once their name appears on a witness list?
Nobody protects them at all. And the lamestream leftist media would be happy to broadcast their names, addresses and photos to make it easier for any terrorist teams looking to inflict some ‘payback’.
BUMP
2012 of course...
And Happy Healthy New Year and don’t turn up your thermostat too high. We are still honoring global warming
I agree. Wouldn’t have bothered me in the least.
Under Obama, however, I’m fully expecting freed terrorists to get a ticker tape parade past that hole in the ground in Lower Manhattan.
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