What has yet to factor into this discussion is the impact these policies will have abroad. I work with human rights activists from Pakistan to Afghanistan to Gaza, Egypt, Indonesia, etc. They are watching what we do and they are worried. They believe their efforts to create and build democratic practices in their countries will suffer if the new rules of engagement allow torture (US lack of accountability for torture goes against US and international law means the practice will have no consequences) as well as detention without due process…the knock-on effect.

See Jimmy Carter’s OpEd from the Washington Post on December 10, 2008 (full disclosure, I work for him on this program):

http://cartercenter.org/news/editorials_speeches/obamas_human_rights_opportunity.html

Let me start by saying that I agree 100% about the toxicity of the commissions, so nothing here should be read as an attempt to defend them.

But it’s not too hard to see the criterion that Obama will use to divide the cases (though he probably wouldn’t admit it publicly). In an ideal world what Obama wants is a/ convictions and b/ a chance to “display the strength of American justice internationally.” But the key thing to remember is that Obama only wants those things in that order.

Convictions are crucial as a way to both justify the imprisonments that have taken place thus far and as a way to lower the number of people O is going to have to label “indefinite detainees.” (As we all know, he’s made it clear that even though he knows indefinite detention is an abomination, he’s still going to employ it in a number of cases.) Military commissions would not still be on the table if the O administration didn’t believe that they would produce convictions that a civilian trial wouldn’t. Why else take the hit for breaking a campaign promise?

(This is, I hope, one place where O really is different from GWB: for GWB and crew, the military commissions were also preferable as a means of extending executive-branch power. I’m hoping, maybe naively, this isn’t one of O’s hidden justifications as well.)

The debate about where the trials should be held have given folks the impression that the big question about the trials is about the security of the trials and their environs, such that “civilian trial” equals downtown Manhattan and “military commission” equals Fort Leavenworth. But no one should forget that the difference is about evidence. (Here’s the CS Monitor on O’s rewriting of the military-commision law: “The conspiracy and material-support charges appear designed, some say, to help the government win convictions in cases with weak evidence.”)

Say you have a bad guy whom you’re afraid is going to win in civilian court. You think he’s a real bad guy, and so for political reasons (which, to reiterate, I’m not defending) you’re not willing to take even a 50% chance on acquittal. Your choices, if you’re Obama, are to hold him indefinitely or to put him before a military commission, where maybe he has a 5% chance of acquittal. Easy choice, right?

But that’s not the scenario with the 9/11 conspirators. There’s no way–NO. WAY.–that Obama is going to do anything to risk losing the conviction in those cases, and so if his administration feels confident about prosecuting in civilian court, it’s because they know they can win. And when they win they also get a gold star for “American justice” and all that.

Damn, line breaks killing me. Imagine them every 4th sentence or so…

And…now they’re back. Sorry, first-time caller here, easily confused.

lets just call them the star chamber and the court. There is a law that determines these things right?

“Confront” is not an action verb in the Obama lexicon.

It’s sad that every major issue becomes so politicized

They’ll all end up in commissions before O is done. These decisions are made entirely on the basis of domestic politics.

This is about keeping the facts about what really happened on 9/11 from coming to light. For it would be cataclysmic. Things like the NORAD standdown, military grade Nanothermite in the WTC dust, and on and on and on…. In a real trial these things could be argued. In a secret military kagaroo court they can be hidden from us.

troll.

obama is showing signs of being a weak leader.

his approach is to do the same things he did as a jr senator.

he is becoming a carter that gives great speechs

he better hope palin runs in 2012

the capitalists now control the media, congress, white house, military, industrial military complex, supreme court, universities with their military grants and their next big goal is the internet.

having both the supreme court and the media is the greatest of feats. that is pure genius.

they even have made americans think that capitalism and patroitism are synonyms. pure genius.

capitalism creates a very selfish and imperialistic society.

even most liberals are imperialistic. obama and biden are living proof of that.

and the young are even more imperialistic being raised in homes of materialistic and imperialistic parents and always knowing wars for profits.

even the germans thought they were the good people in the world freeing others and standing in the streets cheering their soldiers on and of course hitler.

Ironic, to say the least, in that the first job of a court system is to limit the power of the government to impose its will on the rest of us.

Calling him Carter gives him too much credit. Carter actually tried to do many of the progressive things he gave speeches about. He couldn’t get them past Congress. Obama isn’t even trying.

Book Salon up at the Mothership with Julian Zelizer’s Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security – From World War II to the War on Terrorism hosted by Fredrik Logevall

” So conservatives can just as easily say: Why should the most important al-Qaeda detainees get civilian trials but some kid who threw a grenade at a U.S. soldier at the Taliban’s behest get a military tribunal? And that’s not a question the administration wants to answer,…”

True. But it’s also a question that Conservatives don’t want to ask. Because the inverse conclusion could be drawn. They want everyone dealt with by military tribunals. And Obama could say…”you’re right, I agree that it is unfair to the coerced kid and folks simply turned in by someone wanting a bounty”…and then put everyone in the civilian system.

Maybe I’m confused here, but a terrorist captured on, or acting in, US jurisdiction gets different rights accorded to him than a terrorist captured otherwise. The enemy combatant status was introduced to bridge that gap between a formal at-war enemy and a civilian, and they are tried under the authority of military tribunals. Surely there is a valid distinction (within the definitions of existing law) between how these two types of cases ought to be tried? Or is the issue that because Obama fails to make that distinction, the legal status of that distinction is untenable?