Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Bush's military tribunals to be unconstitutional. Instead of observing human rights, and trying the Gitmo detainees in American courts that would protect their rights and the rule of law, Bush again tried to create a system that would convict the detainees as he wanted.
He got Congress to pass a new military tribunal law that wouldn't bother with trifling matters like human rights. But it looks like he screwed it up again.
Yesterday in Guantanamo, two separate military judges threw out the charges against the only two detainees that had charges. It seems that Bush's new law declared the tribunals had juristiction over "alien unlawful enemy combatants". But there are no "alien unlawful enemy combatants" in Guantanamo. Years ago, the military had declared the detainees to simply be "enemy combatants". This caused the two military judges to throw out the charges because they had no juristiction.
The prosecution said they would appeal the decisions. However, the military court to which they would have to appeal doesn't exist. Evidently Bush never thought the prosecution might need to appeal, so the appeals court was never organized and staffed. After all, he didn't want the detainees to be able to appeal.
So now he's stuck with a new law that doesn't grant appropriate juristiction (and was probably unconstitutional anyway). And we are back to holding 380 people who are imprisoned without charges or rights. The whole situation just keeps getting more embarrassing by the day for America.
Bush may try to pass another unconstitutional law to try and railroad these prisoners, but now he has a Democratic Congress. Hopefully they will stop him, and force him to abide by our Constitution.
If we have proof that these men are terrorists, then by all means take then to court and give them a fair trial and punish them. If not, then we should release them immediately.
Hopefully we have passed the bad days when Bush could imprison anyone he didn't like without charges, rights or trials.
No comments:
Post a Comment
ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED. And neither will racist,homophobic, or misogynistic comments. I do not mind if you disagree, but make your case in a decent manner.