White House proposes ‘solution’ to Hamdan case

August 2, 2006

Since the Supreme Court’s [tag]Hamdan[/tag] ruling was issued, and the White House agreed to “revise” its legal procedures for holding detainees, Bush’s lawyers have been crafting a proposal for Congress that would become the administration’s new policy. To put it mildly, the first draft isn’t encouraging.

A draft Bush administration plan for special [tag]military courts[/tag] seeks to expand the reach and authority of such “[tag]commissions[/tag]” to include trials, for the first time, of people who are not members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban and are not directly involved in acts of international terrorism, according to officials familiar with the proposal.

The plan, which would replace a military trial system ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in June, would also allow the secretary of defense to add crimes at will to those under the military court’s jurisdiction. The two provisions would be likely to put more individuals than previously expected before military juries, officials and independent experts said.

Got that? The new-and-improved military commissions could consider charges against just about anyone, not for being a suspected terrorist, but for a list of offenses Donald Rumsfeld could add to at his own discretion.

The accused would not have the [tag]right[/tag] to confront their accusers, or to exclude hearsay accusations, or to bar evidence obtained through [tag]torture[/tag]. The right to a public trial, a speedy trial, and to choose your own military counsel would not apply. Indeed, the commission could try the accused without him or her even being there.

The Navy’s top uniformed lawyer from 1997 to 2000 told the WaPo that the rules would evidently allow the government to tell a prisoner: “We know you’re [tag]guilty[/tag]. We can’t tell you why, but there’s a guy, we can’t tell you who, who told us something. We can’t tell you what, but you’re guilty.”

He’s not kidding.

Keep in mind, this isn’t just some radical trial balloon (no pun intended), to set up easier negotiations down the road. This draft, the WaPo explained, was already approved by administration attorneys. Military attorneys have balked at the proposal, apparently because of some nagging concern for “due process.”

Other experts in constitutional law seem to agree.

Bruce Fein, an associate deputy attorney general during the Reagan administration, said after reviewing the leaked draft that “the theme of the government seems to be ‘They are guilty anyway, and therefore due process can be slighted.’ ” With these procedures, Fein said, “there is a real danger of getting a wrong verdict” that would let a lower-echelon detainee “rot for 30 years” at Guantanamo Bay because of evidence contrived by personal enemies.

In effect, the Bush gang is taking their old policy — the one struck down by the Supreme Court — and putting into legislative form for Congress to approve.

Hit & Run and Unfogged compare Bush’s proposal to the star chamber, and given the details, it’s hard to disagree.

Are there any due process limitations to what the administration is asking for? It sounds to me as through the administration could lock up every Senator of the opposing party in perpetuity without ever providing any rationale beyond an indication that it is in the interest of national security. Am I missing something or is it really that broad?

  • seeks to expand the reach and authority of such “commissions” to include trials, for the first time, of people who are not members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban and are not directly involved in acts of international terrorism, according to officials familiar with the proposal.

    He’s talking about you and me, folks….

  • If this actually gets to Congress there had better not be one more bill debated, one more dollar allocated, or one more appointment concidered until the bill is recended and Donald Rumsfeld is fired.

    This is total crap and it is scarier than hell. It does avoid the whole activist judge problem nicely.

    If this is enacted and there is not large scale rioting in the streets I am outta here.

    Democracy is on the march!

  • Apparently the WH read only half of the Hamdan opinion (about lacking enabling authority from the legislative branc) and skipped the half about having to abide by the Geneva Conventions. Unless, of course, Congress is willing to continue its course of retroactively papering over WH miscondict by now pulling the US out of the Geneva Conventions. Amazingly, I find myself thinking this is more than a little possible with the present Congress.

  • “We know you’re guilty. We can’t tell you why, but there’s a guy, we can’t tell you who, who told us something. We can’t tell you what, but you’re guilty.”

    Sounds exactly like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as practiced NOW — remember Bleu Copas, a decorated U.S. Sergeant and Arabic language specialist dismissed from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ Copas says he never admitted being gay and his accuser was never identified.

  • Why does some this sound familiar? Oh … yeah …

    And in the general hardening of outlook that set in … practices which had been long abandoned: imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions … and the deportation of whole populations – not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.

    While the last three words don’t apply to Rummy and Co., the rest is pretty much on the mark. Which, of course, should scare the hell out of everyone.

  • During the G-8 summit Newsweek had an opportunity to follow Bush around. I am surprised that the story has not gotten more play. It has a number of telling passages. This one in particular explains a lot about Bush and by extension BushCo. It is also relevant to the current discussion.

    That afternoon the leaders are promised they will see the final text of their statement on the Middle East, which calls on Hizbullah to end its rocket attacks and then urges Israel to end its military strikes. But the document fails to arrive at the promised hour of 4, and it’s still not there at 5 o’clock. Bush has had it. “I’m going home,” he says to the room full of presidents and prime ministers. “I’m going to get a shower. I’m just about meeting’d out.” Some of the leaders suggest they should all work out their differences together. But Bush can no longer keep up appearances. “I thought that was a lousy idea and so did others,” Bush says later. “It would lose focus and everybody would then have an opinion.“

    For Bush the opinions of others are nothing more than obstacles to be maneuvered around. In the current situation it isn’t opinions, but rather due process which is seen as an obstacle to be maneuvered around.

    How the hell did we get to here? (That’s a rhetorical question. No need to respond.)

  • More, and more, on fairly much a daily basis, I am reminded of a correspondence carried on by Thomas Jefferson, in which he eluded to the needs of the People to defend their freedoms, liberties and rights against a tyrannical government. I believe that the correspondence included the phrase “let them take arms.”

    Surely, these moronic twits within the Beltway cannot, even for an instant, believe that they could push this past both the legislative authority of Congress and the Constitutional review of SCOTUS. And even if they were to find themselves so fortunate, how might they enforce such a measure? The vast bulwark of the military is currently deployed, and a sizeable portion of what remains here at home would, in all likelihood, refuse orders to carry out such a draconian enforcement. Most law enforcement officers would likewise refuse to carry out such orders to aid and abet the military in this case.

    Who’s left to support this—the freaking mega-churches? Places where thousands of dominion-minded drool-pups gather to bay their obedience to a mudslinging hatemonger? The fundamental strategic weaknes of such institutionalized theocratic paramilitantism is that “it is by far easier to swat 5,000 flies in one discrete place, than it is to swat 5,000 flies in 5,000 disparate places.” They are vastly outnumbered, they are too big to hide, and their ability to defend is militarily untenable.

    If Herr Bush and his “Pentagon Pet” elect to begin this war—a war against the very foundations of the United States itself—there is currently no human term to describe the utter depths of defeat to which they will find themselves—and their allies—subjected….

  • Tomorrow, the following activities will be added to the list of offenses against the state by the Secretary of Defense:
    – Whistleblowing, unauthorized leaking
    – Reporting
    – Publishing any information that has not been distributed in an official briefing
    – Opinion Polling
    – Belonging to an illegal political party
    – Sex, without a valid licensel to procreate
    – Refusing to volunteer for the military
    – Placing an unauthorized phone call to an unauthorized recipient
    – Attending any house of worship not on the approved list, or not attending an approved service at least weekly
    – Teaching of unauthorized material considered harmful to the state, including American history, ethics, and other unspecified subjects
    – Intent to commit an unlawful thought

  • Hey, um, don’t say you heard this from me, but I heard that there’s this guy who’s intent on destroying the American government, and he’s got a bunch of wacky allies who run around saying crazy things on TV, and sometimes they try to act like they’re all part of the same big plan, and sometimes they pretend they don’t even know each other, and the rest of the world thinks they’re a bunch of dangerous idiots because they seem like all they want to do is blow things up, whether it’s bad guys or innocent civilians or just random people to make a point about how tough they are. His family’s made a bunch of money in oil and business in the last sixty years, so they’re pretty well-connected, but it’s also pretty obvious to most people that this guy’s just completely nuts now, thinks he can do whatever he wants, regardless of the law anywhere, because his god tells him it’s what he wants, but most of the people who share his religious views aren’t so sure that it’s not just the voices in his head.

    Sound like anyone we know? Or a couple of them?

  • Bush is a sick demented buffoon. That doesn’t scare me. Part of me feels sorry for him. So, what conclusion can I come to about the strange phenomenon of his presidency? The conclusion is contained in the word ‘stooge’. And that does scare me.

    There’s a wily underbelly to this decay. It’s too clever by half. There may or may not be a concerted effort to pervert justice, but there is a perversion of justice. It may or may not be through a master plan of a mastermind, but a momentum is gathering that suggests a tacit agenda. Something is afoot.

    When looking at historical precedents — Third Reich, Inquisition, Star Chamber — we see a current developing through circumstance and opportunity suffused with deviant and distorted beliefs and fanciful convictions that generates the abominations we can identify now with hindsight. At the time, however, the bulk of people seemed to have been oblivious to what was happening and helpless if they woke up to it. What transpired seems to have been the result of tendencies and motivations that became increasingly depraved and callus, coalescing among the powerful and infecting and galvanising the gullible into a hurricane of terror and decimation.

    Though no discernible plan necessarily existed from the beginning, the appearance of a plan emerged as nefarious individuals not lacking intelligence identified and seized opportunities for self-aggrandisement and apocalyptic fulfilment. So the whole cancer spreads and devours. Quite a sorry state one could suppose.

    The indications are mounting that such is happening now. The same sense of indignation, incredulity and desparation as one would imagine pervaded the literati in these earlier times is also evident today. Of course, the madness did pass, but not without cost and heroic effort.

    It may do no harm just to observe, joke a little, and curse. But for those who have the honour and opportunity to actively contribute to the restoration of normality in this dreadful situation I have but the deepest respect. Good luck!

  • Is there any question that the biggest threat to America is Bush? Bush is a traitor. Bush is an enemy of the state. Bush needs to be given a fair trial, convicted and thrown in jail for the rest of his life.

    Bush is Un-American!

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