(noon. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
The Obama administration disregard for the rule law and human rights continues
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – Still operating under Bush-era policies that President Barack Obama last year called “a mess,” the Pentagon will resume military commission hearings for accused terrorists Wednesday in a top secret compound originally designed for the trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
War court critics denounced the decision to go ahead with hearings this week, saying that without new rules that the Obama administration has yet to complete, the commissions are operating with uncertain procedures.
“It’s really like a lame duck commission,” bristled Mike Berrigan, deputy chief defense counsel.
snip
Among the questions the lack of a new manual of procedures leaves unanswered is whether a defendant could enter a guilty plea in a case where he might face the death penalty. Under military law, such a confession isn’t allowed, a requirement that stymied earlier efforts to try the 9/11 conspirators after they offered to confess to a judge directly without empanelling a jury.
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you go, Obama. Right now, you’re only up to your lower lip in sleaze. Take the plunge, holmes.
With apologies to Chris Hedges.
When someone sees the word “court” they almost automatically assume there is some kind of quasi-legitimate forum for resolving an issue.
The reality is a court can be anything the people who devise it want it to be, there is zero moral high ground or legitimacy beause the word “court” is used.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H…
he took an oath to uphold the rule of law and actively sought the highest office we have, he asked us to dump this in his lap. The constitution is not a problem that is dumped on a pols lap. It is the basic tenant that hold this nation together not a hot potato that can be passed off as a problem you inherited from an administration you refuse to refute for it’s lawlessness.
This is what happens if you move forward leaving the law behind as a quaint piece of paper. His dilemma seems to be how to proceed with the appearance of being a nation of laws, while implementing and continuing the same unlawful agenda and using/defending the lies and crimes of the last regime and passing it off as necessary for national security.
It is not possible to have it both ways. this DoJ is still populated by Bushies and is fighting via the courts for state secrets and the unitary executive. Uncertain procedures are what happens when you through the laws out the window and use the same playbook that got dumped in his lap. He cannot blame the former administration as he has validated and assumed their way forward.
Or so he had “hoped.”