Bush seeks to extend Guantánamo procedures to American citizens

[NNN0LHI]

http://wsws.org/articles/2006/aug2006/trib-a01.shtml

In draft legislation prepared in response to last month’s Supreme Court decision against the use of military tribunals for US prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, the Bush administration proposes to extend the practice of indefinite detention and summary trial by military commissions to include American citizens.

According to press accounts Friday, based on leaks from those with access to the draft, the bill would essentially legalize the military tribunals in the form decreed by Bush in 2001, with only minor changes, while for the first time making US citizens as well as foreign nationals subject to such summary proceedings.

The tribunals, commissions of active-duty military personnel under orders of the president as commander-in-chief, would have the power to impose death sentences based on secret evidence and in proceedings from which the defendants could be excluded whenever military judges decided this was “necessary to protect national security.”

The Washington Post reported that the draft legislation had initially reaffirmed the 2001 Bush order that limited the jurisdiction of the military commissions to “alien enemy combatants.” This language was crossed out, the newspaper said, and replaced by language giving the commissions authority to try anyone “engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners,” regardless of nationality.

When American John Walker Lindh was captured in Afghanistan in 2001, where he served as a member of the Taliban-controlled armed forces, he was not taken to Guantánamo because he was a US citizen. His case was tried in federal court, which provided him greater legal protections, ultimately making it necessary for the Bush administration to accept a plea bargain and a 20-year prison term rather than seek a death sentence. If the proposed draft legislation had been in effect, Lindh could have faced a military tribunal.

[politicaholic]

1. Typical, a single case is used as a platform to destroy basic rights...

I'm beginning to think that Georgie is not only NOT republican, but also NOT American either. Perhaps a Saddam hybrid without the mustache.

[alfredo]

5. I was thinking Pinochet.

he was good at making people disappear, and bush seems to be doing the same.

[gratuitous]

2. Seems mickle odd to me . . .

That John Lindh, captured in Afghanistan when he was 20 years old, was all set for execution Bush-style based on . . . well, what exactly? Did he actually shoot at anyone? Had he killed any U.S. military folks? He was certainly captured while in the company of Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan. And Bush wanted him executed, but was thwarted when Lindh's citizenship interfered.

(Now, what do we make of our own star-spangled fightin' men and women in uniform? Some of them are far older than 20, and have done some pretty heinous things, far more heinous than prosecutors ever alleged or proved against Lindh. Yet, we readily excuse the military for its "bad apples" or its "youthful, easily influenced recruits" like Lynndie England.)

But the case of Lindh apparently causes Mr. Bush and his administration to go mad with rage that they couldn't execute the 20-year-old. And so all citizens have to pay for the constitutional protections that deprived the administration of a trophy.

[libodem]

3. This seems to awful too be true

This is so wrong and unconstitutional. This crap defies the Bill Of Rights. What's wrong with these people. What's wrong with our Democrats who are supposed to oppose them? This country has gone mad.

[Benhurst]

4. We know what's wrong with the Bush Crime Family. They are

fascists.

But I join you in asking, what's wrong with our Democrats who are supposed to oppose them?

This country has gone mad.

[Sinti]

6. How will they define the phrase "engaged in hostilities"? n/t