The Gravel For 11/13/09: Still Not All The Way Good

Photo from OLIVIER DOULIERY/ OLIVIER DOULIERY/ABACA PRESS/MCT

Glenn Greenwald, as usual, tells the whole truth about the Justice Departments decision to send Guantanomo Bay detainees to court in New York.

Though it is commendable that our legal system under the Obama Administration is making the decision to let trials happen (something that certainly wouldn't have happen under the previous one), this crucial fact is getting overlooked by most :

The problem is that this decision does not stand alone. Instead, it is accompanied by this:

Holder will also announce that a major suspect in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, will face justice before a military commission, as will a handful of other detainees to be identified at the same announcement, the official said.

It was not immediately clear where commission-bound detainees like al-Nashiri might be sent, but a military brig in South Carolina has been high on the list of considered sites.

So what we have here is not an announcement that all terrorism suspects are entitled to real trials in a real American court. Instead, what we have is a multi-tiered justice system, where only certain individuals are entitled to real trials: namely, those whom the Government is convinced ahead of time it can convict. Others for whom conviction is less certain will be accorded lesser due process: put in military commissions, to which most leading Democrats vehemently objected when created under Bush. Presumably, others still -- those who the Government believes cannot be convicted in either forum, will simply be held indefinitely with no charges, a power the administration recently announced it intends to preserve based on the same theories used by Bush/Cheney to claim that power.

So the people who we are going to give full fair trail too, the evidence against them is pretty seriously to the point that their conviction is guaranteed. Like Khalid Sheikh Mohammaed.

But Greenwald brings the painful other side of this story that few are talking about, which are the military trials that we are giving to the rest of the detainers who may have a possibility of not being guilty . Add on the fact that all the torturous things that the Bush Administration and their Justice Department inflicted on some of these guys, and you have situations like the one this young guy is in

Omar Khadr -- the Canadian "child soldier" imprisoned at Guantanamo for the last seven years, since he was 15 years old, for allegedly throwing a grenade at an American soldier in Afghanistan (that's apparently "terrorism") and the subject of a difficult-to-watch video of him weeping like the child he is while being interrogated -- will reportedly be one of those denied a trial and instead allowed only a military commission, according to Canada's Canwest News Service (h/t sysprog):

Canadian-born terror suspect Omar Khadr faces continued prosecution in the U.S. military tribunal established in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. . . .

The federal system offers the full panoply of defendant rights available to U.S. citizens under the U.S. Constitution, while civil rights groups have argued the military commissions at the U.S. naval base in Cuba do not meet that standard.

Sadly though, few outlets will talk about this story and all, since Khadr was not on the U.S. side of the war here. And that will apply to those in his exact situation.

In a rational state of news affairs in this country, you would think the discussion would be whether the Obama Administration should face full criticism for not giving all of these men a fair trial. It would show the world that we have upmost confidence in our litigation system in this country and that we are truly fair.

Instead, the discussion is with idiot Republicans and factually challenged neo-conservatives who see this as "OMG, the terrorists will break up and destroy American citizens" despite the obvious fact that terrorists have been tried in courts in this country for years. They'll use their stupid scare tactic argument against the Obama Administration's usage of our laws, and would have rather kept all of these men to riot in waterboard heaven at Gitmo.

And while the nutcases and the stupid will still be given their side of the argument by our corporate media, the most important element of this whole debate will go pass the myopic.

"Everyone is a 'terrorist' if you are against the United States on the battle field" is the lasting thought from today's decision. And a straight military trial instead of a full fair one will make that label stay for good, when it possibly shouldn't.