Guantanamo judges toss out 2 detainees’ cases

Well…

Military judges dismissed charges Monday against a Guantanamo detainee who chauffeured Osama bin Laden and another who allegedly killed a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, marking a stunning setback to Washington’s attempts to try detainees in military court.

In back-to-back arraignments for Canadian Omar Khadr and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, of Yemen, the U.S. military’s cases against the alleged al-Qaida figures dissolved because, the two judges said, the government had failed to establish jurisdiction.

They were the only two of the roughly 380 prisoners at Guantanamo charged with crimes, and the rulings stand to complicate efforts by the United States to try other suspected al-Qaida and Taliban figures in military courts.

It’s a shame to see these folks possibly escaping justice… on the other hand… this kind of dispels the myth of kangaroo courts that the liberals propagate. 

1. Yeah, after all they only spent five years in confinement.

   Posted by on June 04, 2007 at 2158 hrs




2. I know, they missed out on a whole-lotta infidel-killin’ during that time, dang it.

   Posted by on June 04, 2007 at 2213 hrs




3. "Kangaroo Courts” whats that supposed to mean.

   Posted by on June 04, 2007 at 2312 hrs




4. A kangaroo court is one where the proceedings are just for show and the verdict is a foregone conclusion.

   I really think that’s what some in Washington were hoping (and fighting) for.  It’s nice to see that justice in America isn’t quite as maleable as they’d hoped.

   Posted by on June 05, 2007 at 0842 hrs




5. I thinks that your hopes are in vain, Owen.  This will be seen as further repudiation of the heavy-handed use of the so-called PATRIOT Act.

   That the Fort Dix and JFK plots were busted without resorting to defiling the Constitution and the fact that even the cherry-picked military courts can’t prosecute without vidence just goes to show that, One more time, Bush is wrong on security for our nation.

   This administartion has been wrong time and time again.  When will you decide that you’ve supported it long enough?  How much more ineptitude can you stomach?

   Posted by on June 05, 2007 at 1054 hrs




6. The story notes that the military only hopes to prosecute 80 of the 380 people its in custody at Guantanamo. What does the United States government say to the other 300? Oops? Sorry about the five years we stole from your life, but we had elections to win by stoking fear and anxiety? Sorry we never even charged you with anything, but habeas corpus is for wusses? Sorry about the torture, but we had to look like Jack Bauer for the mid-terms?

   Posted by on June 05, 2007 at 1107 hrs




7. Yes apc, that’s exactly what they say.  It’s happened to hundreds of other people over the last three years, and I really don’t think it’s helping win hearts and minds.

   Posted by on June 05, 2007 at 1229 hrs




8. Yeah, because you know—all of those guys at Gitmo were just hanging around, picking daises and praying to Mecca when the NSA overheard them on their phones talking about Allah and Bush’s stormtroopers busted in to haul them off...right?

   Sorry for stealing five years of your life. We’ll give them back when you give life back to the people you killed or helped kill.

   And...oh mah gawd, Saviors Of The World (tm) Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton both restricted the use of habeas corpus. Lincoln ran rampant prior to secession and was only restrained by the Supreme Court, while Clinton signed into law the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

   PS No American citizens have been classified as enemy combatants to this date.

   PPS The right to demand writs of habeas corpus, while present in common law, is not anywhere a guaranteed right of a US Citizen.

   Posted by k2aggie07 on June 05, 2007 at 1424 hrs




9. How in the hell do we know what they were doing when they were hauled off to Gitmo? We have no idea whether or not they killed or helped kill anybody. No charges have been filed. No evidence has been brought to bear. As the story made clear, the military has no plans to bring charges on 300 of these detainees, because THEY OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T DO ANYTHING EXCEPT BE MUSLIM! The last time I checked, that’s not against the law anywhere, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, where most of these men were rounded up like stray dogs. If any of these people had done anything, don’t you think charges would have been brought and shouted from the rooftops for the biggest possible political advantage for this floundering Bush presidency? This blatant perversion of everything this country stands for, however, has served to make enemies of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Muslims. The fact that we’ve tortured them makes it even worse.

   PS. You say no American citizens have classified as enemy combatants as yet. How do you know? Do you really think the most secretive (by miles and miles) administration in history would let that kind of information out?

   PPS The founders didn’t put habeas corpus into the Constitution because, it having been settled law for centuries at the time they wrote the Constitution, never dreamed it would be under such assault from an officer sworn to uphold the Constitution.

   Posted by on June 05, 2007 at 1522 hrs




10. The suspension of right of those detainees is totally unacceptable and un-American. Many of these people happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time—i.e. when Afghan warlords where given bounties to round up someone, anyone.

    More and more we are finding out most of these people represented no threat to our country. Oh excuse me. They did represent a threat to this lawless administration in the possibility of pointing out how bogus the charges were against them.

    Coming from this administration which has had a record of trumping up terror threats—http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/06/04/ olbermann-the-nexus-of-politics-and-terror-2/—why should anyone except hyper-partisans believe them?

    As far as the Fort Dix and JFK plots, these were concoctions of pathetic losers. And if that is what the Bush Administration and the fascists at FOX are afraid of, we are all in trouble. Of course the news media which you all belch at once again played along with the inanity.

    Posted by on June 05, 2007 at 1657 hrs