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Flip Flop: White House Considering Military Trials for 9/11 Suspects
The Washington Post reported on its website Thursday that officials are “nearing” a recommendation for a military trial and are eager to resolve the issue before Obama departs for a trip to Guam, Indonesia and Australia on March 18. The Post account was attributed to “officials," who were not identified or quoted.
Obama aides pointed to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’s comment that “no decisions have been made” on the issue.
“If this stunning reversal comes to pass, President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values,” American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. “If the president flip-flops and retreats to the Bush military commissions, he will betray his campaign promise to restore the rule of law, demonstrate that his principles are up for grabs and lose all credibility with Americans who care about justice and the rule of law.”
In November, Holder declared that Mohammed and four alleged accomplices would be moved from Guantanamo Bay to Manhattan for trial in federal court there. Local officials and federal lawmakers were initially supportive, but last month that support quickly unraveled after business executives and owners complained about the protracted disruptions a trial would cause.
Justice Department officials scrambled to find another site for the trial but all of the obvious sites in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania (the states where the crimes were committed) faced opposition from high-ranking officials in those states.
Returning the 9/11 case to a Guantanamo-based military commission, where it was in pretrial proceedings before being dropped earlier this year, could preempt efforts on Capitol Hill to ban civilian trials for the 9/11 suspects. The potential move could be attractive to Obama because it might help him win support for funding and legislative changes needed to close Guantanamo, which he’d initially pledged to do by the beginning of this year, by purchasing an Illinois prison to house remaining war-on-terror inmates from the controversial Caribbean island jail.
However, putting the 9/11 suspects into a military tribunal would not go far enough to satisfy some lawmakers who oppose civilian trials for any of the Guantanamo detainees. And it would not meet a central demand of one of those trying to broker a deal with the White House, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). He has said he will vote for such a package only if it includes a preventive detention law—something the White House opposes.
“We’ve argued from the day Attorney General Eric Holder announced his unilateral decision to try these terrorists in federal court in lower Manhattan that military commissions at Guantanamo Bay are the appropriate way to deal with such terrorists and we hope the President now agrees,” said Aaron Harison, the executive director of Keep America Safe, a new group launched by Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and others to advocate “legislation and executive action that enhances the national security of the United States.”
“Backing down and moving the KSM trial to a military commission will not mollify Republicans, it will embolden them,” said Ken Gude, who studies detainee issues for the liberal Center for American Progress think tank. “A federal criminal trial for KSM is in the best interests of the United States and President Obama needs to stand up for what is right even if it is politically unpopular.”
The Obama Administration has never rejected the military commission option. Even Holder opted to send several Guantanamo prisoners for trials in that forum. But Obama and other officials expressed a preference for using civilian courts “whenever feasible.”
Some observers said it was odd that Obama might be in a position where fulfilling his vow to close Guantanamo depends on him opting largely, or even exclusively, for military-delivered justice.
“The Obama administration has not made much of an effort to defend—publicly or internationally—the reformed military commissions, and now it may find itself relying on them more than it ever expected,” said Matthew Waxman, a Columbia Law School professor and former Pentagon detainee affairs chief. “During the Bush years, military commissions and Guantanamo were always seen as going hand in hand. Now it turns out that accepting one of them may be the price of eliminating the other.”
21 Comments so far
Show AllGreat!! ...Dont forget to round up feith,rice,powell,papa BU$h,jeb&43,chaynee,wolfowitz,perle,fleischer,rummy,card and lucky larry sillver$stein for starters......to try these terrorists in federal court in lower Manhattan that military commissions at Guantanamo Bay are the appropriate way to deal with such terrorists and we hope the President now agrees
Not only will they never be tried, they will be back in January 2013 when the new republican administration is sworn in. Thank you, Borat Obama.
Dear God in Heaven...what have we done and what are we doing? The world will be at our doorstep, gun in hand, and who can blame them? And where are the lawyer organizations, UN World Ct, and the ACLU? Why aren't they bringing court documents up against the government demanding proper trials for all these people? Or are they and no one hears about it?
Daily, I am on my knees begging for forgiveness for voting for Obummer and being taken in by his bull shit lies. In the fascist definition in Wiki, it says that the single party system is the key to controlling the populace. I suspect, yes, believe firmly, that Obominable was a plant from the neo-con right, a sleeper all those years in Chicago. Holy crap. We are in the middle of a movie script from the 80's. And we can't run out of the theater screaming...
but we sure as hell can get our butts in the streets of DC, Detroit, LA, Philly, NYC, wherever, on 3-20...
we need millions, not thousands. It doesn't matter who organizes it, we're all in this and we damn well better wake up to what is happening. I am not so sure we can stop this downhill runaway train. But we can absolutely make it crash through a nationwide...?worldwide???, GENERAL STRIKE. JUST ALL WORKERS STOP WORKING until someone notices. Nothing has been done along these lines since '07. Those were the days when we were mad, now we are betrayed and outraged. So where's the GS forming??? Hmmm, maybe someone should call moveon...ok, well,
If there is one thing I learned about God and politics, it is this. Never ever bring God into politics. Politics comes from people and no God or Goddess will dare interfere with it. I wouldn't count on moveon to wake up until they smell an Obama defeat coming up.
OMG, I just went to a site that was pushing a general strike for Jan 12, 2010 ?? and in order to join, fill out the form so you can TRACK YOUR INVESTMENTS!!!!! what the fuck...it's called seekingalpha and what a friggin joke. I almost threw up but I haven't had breakfast yet. It's a money grubbing bastard blog spot and this ahole Michael Clark, damn, what a messed up dirtbag he must be. Talk about talking out both ass cheeks.
The charade continues even with the confirmation of nano-thermite found on site.
http://www.vidoemo.com/yvideo.php?i=T1hPeHl5cWuRpUlRGMHM&nano-thermite-used-to-demolish-all-three-9-11-world-trade-center-buildings=
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
"The charade continues even with the confirmation of nano-thermite found on site."
I have come to consider www.9lltruth.org the most important website on the internet, as the evidence accumulates and accumulates and its affiliate groups, such as the now thousand-strong Architects and Engineers for 9-11 truth substantiate and verify what so many of us, frequently referred to as conspiracy nuts, concluded from the available evidence several years ago.
Richard Cheney had severe chest pains last week; Obama is skittering around with the where-how-and whats of the trial of "the sheik" who was waterboarded 123 times; THE WASHINGTON TIMES and a few other newspapers in other states carried the confirmation story of the nano-thermite found in the dust of the Twin Towers, but of course, the MSM is SILENT.
This is THE story ... that 9-11 was a complicated, but exquisitely planned and carried out, INSIDE JOB with assistance from Israel's Mossad and perhaps Saudi money, with Tony Blair jumping in to carry out the spin-off attack and invasion of Iraq.
If the lid really comes off, that'll do it in terms of lots of worms madly turning as they slither and scramble to get back in their respective cans.
First, the respective mouths of the citizen's of the U.S. will fall open, and then their eyes will glaze over, but then the anger will begin to grow and rise as the realizations hit that they have been duped BIG TIME and so many of their problems are linked directly to the BIG LIE about who really perpetrated the 9-11 Tragedy.
Update yourself, folks, on the various 9-11 websites and spread the word, and help the unravelling along. It is the one thing, I think, that can change the course of our history, and we need to change course as soon as possible ... actually immediately.
/cm
The attempt to marginalize and ridicule 9/11 "Truthers", including coining the very term "truther" as a pejorative, is supported by reactionaries across the political spectrum. It's not exactly a "vast right-wing conspiracy", or a formal conspiracy at all-- it's a potpourri of diverse groups that are advantaged by leaving bad enough alone.
The government institutions, including civil, military, and state security agencies have their reasons for discrediting so-called Truthers; individually and in groups, yahoos and wingnuts reject information that conflicts with their primitive comic-book Manicheism; insecure moderates and liberal-lites likewise attempt to discredit Truthers from the left, expressing fatuous and contrived righteous indignation over irresponsible tinfoil-hat loons making the "left" look foolish and undermining its cause; political organizers despise the "9/11 truth" question because it's contentious and devisive, and is inimical to the constructive conformity they believe is crucial to political progress.
I'm a little surprised that one of these reactionaries hasn't attempted to stomp on this sub-thread by now to "trump" the question by pointing to the 911-Debunking sites that have sprung up to bury the controversy.
The debunking websites were inevitable, and anti-Truthers of all stripes are grateful for them. Ironically, before they existed, the anti-Truthers had to settle for scorning and deriding "Truthers" as dupes or idiots who "believe anything on the Internet".
Now they can simply thump their keyboards and write, "The Debunker site said it, I believe it, and that SETTLES it!"
Time will tell.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Claims are being made in the press that the "Pentagon Shooter" was a radical member of one of the 9/11 truth movements.
This will give the Government the ammunition to link persons who question the Official version of 9/11 to terrorism with a potential towards violence. Under the Patriot act and other such legislation the rights of such persons are forfeit.
They can be rounded up and treated as Padilla was, on the President's authorization.
Yes, I've been worried about this, too. As Cee Miracles mentioned, 9/11 truth has been gathering steam of late, and I wonder if that is one of the reasons for all the Bin Laden/Al Qaeda hot air that's been polluting the MSM in the last couple of months. It may also be a reason for taking the KSM trial out of civil courts, where the state's "evidence" could be more thorough examined than in the kangaroo military version.
As to actual evidence that the "Pentagon shooter" was a "radical member" of the 9/11 movement, I haven't seen any, but I certainly have read mention that he expressed himself in no uncertain terms on the question. If being a doubter of the official snow job on 9/11 makes one a "radical," however, then it seems that half or more of NYC residents and a very large minority (if not a majority) of the American public is "radical."
One thing is certain. 9/11 skepticism is not going to go away. But the more time passes, the more valuable witnesses can be expected to die, whether naturally or by murder. Think Barry Jennings.
That's a bit of chilling news, GWN. But it's sort of like putting a finger in the dike as the storms and the high waves rage ever stronger. Then you need three fingers, then the other hand; then your toes. Dikes have a way of springing leaks once they start, and then whoosh ...
And gee, Lee Hamilton and Thomas Keane, appointed chief investigators and authors of the Commission Report, then wrote a book about their own investigations and alleged that the White House withheld informaton and they never could get what they asked for, thus casting doubt on the conclusions of the Commission Report.
I believe polls indicate that more than half of U.S. citizens think that the Big Lie is a lie. Problem is most of those doubters are not inclined to do their homework and really spend some time getting into the evidenciary information available.
With Firefighters for 9-11 truth now -- and they evidently have "ungagged" themselves, I think the winds are picking up and the waves are getting higher.
We'll see, won't we?
/cm
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Mr. President Otoken Constitutional Scholar rips the Constitution into ever smaller shreds yet again.
“If this stunning reversal comes to pass, President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values,”
"a death blow"?? Come on! The justice dept. is staffed by people that just exonerated themselves of the crime of torture. What more could Obama do to destroy the credibility of the US justice department?
My thoughts exactly.
Why try him at all? He's already been condemned to death.
But executing prisoners of war never bodes well for our own soldiers.
I thought the main reason for the reversal to military tribunals was not to protect businesses in Manhattan but to allow the waterboarding testimony, which could not have been heard in civilian courts.
I was looking forward to a civil trial. Imagine the fun the defense attorneys would have during the disclosure phase of the trial. KSM may be proved to be guilty, but the trial would open up further investigation into the war crimes of the Bush Administration.
Maybe that's the real reason to shift the trial back to the military courts. Since the Dems and Republicans are really one party, they don't want to end up convicting themselves.
Ah yes, home of the brave, land of the free.
Who can ever believe much less trust our Totalitarian Military Dictatorship any more?
The history of our Republic is fast disappearing, like 'suspected' terrorists, down the Memory Hole.
Whatever Republicans want, right Mr. President?
Obama is sounding more and more in his statements and little speeches like a programmed vegetable. I hate to say it, but he is as unflappable about the most serious and tragic matters as the highest grade sociopath/psychopath.
When I saw a taped session of The Oprah Show at a friend's house recently of the appearance by Andrew and Cherie Young in the John Edwards' matter, I was appalled at the subterfuge. Included were past clips of John Edwards on talk shows, looking a little the worse for wear, but lying with the same ease as the highest grade sociopath/psychopath about his lack of culpability in having an affair, then siring a child, and etcetera. Just amazing.
Washington D.C. needs fumigating. Just listening to the smooth, snake-oil babble, and often just plain insanity, from our "leaders" and "representatives" through these years, it is difficult to find real people among then and The TRUTH, nothing but The TRUTH, at least more than 50 per cent of the time anyway.
At this point we could update the Declaration of Independence by listing our
grievances against the current "crowned heads." There's more than enough reasons to separate ourselves from the debacle that has become our government and declare a new Republic.
I do understand that that is dreaming, however.
A Corporate Kleptocracy in tandem with a Military Dictatorship. Shades of Benito Mussolini's ideal government, but with Alfred E. Newman at the helm.
MADD COMICS, indeed, but it's not funny.
/cm
Barak Obamma must be a spelunker....he seems to always cave.
What in the world are "we" afraid of? Are our civil courts, not among the most fair worldwide? If there is a problem with holding a trial in a civil New York City court, try KSM in Chicago, or Minneapolis or Seattle. What's so hot about military tribunals? Or are they an easier place to control the dissemination of trial testimony? Again, what is it that some of the Beltway authorities fear that they would choose to take us back to the secrecy and duplicity of the Cheney/Bush days? Let's get real! Or is it the 9/11 Truth movement that makes the corporatoracy/oligarchy/ plutocracy tremble in their boots? When are they going to try to gut our Constitution completely?