Obama "admits defeat": NO Gitmo suspects will be tried in civilian courts

[Bluebear]

Reporting from Washington— The Obama administration admitted defeat in its efforts to prosecute the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks before a civilian jury in New York City, announcing that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others would be tried by a military commission at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The decision, announced Monday by Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., marks a sharp political setback for President Obama, who had repeatedly pledged to use civilian courts to try "high-value" terrorism suspects. It also creates fresh uncertainty about the legal road ahead for senior Al Qaeda suspects now in custody.

A federal judge in Manhattan promptly dismissed a sealed grand jury indictment from December 2009 against Mohammed and the four others pending transfer of the case to the military tribunal. The existence of the 10-count, 81-page federal indictment against the five men was not previously known.

Several hours later, Navy Capt. John Murphy, chief prosecutor in the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions, announced that charges would be filed "in the near future" to try the case at Guantanamo. Mohammed and his codefendants are among about 170 detainees at the military prison there.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-holder-gitmo-20110405,0,2295022.story

[aquart]

1. Gutless.

Because they might get a juror like me who would set anyone free who was tortured by the US government.

If I can't torture the people I want to torture, NOBODY TORTURES. Fair is fair.

[roguevalley]

9. CHALK ANOTHER CAMPAIGN PROMISE OFF! :-D Oh, wait ...

[apples and oranges]

26. So you would let a terrorist go free to prove a point?

And you're mad because you've been potentially robbed of that opportunity? Wow! Just wow!

[Democracyinkind]

42. And how many "terrorists" are there in Guantanomo?

Nobody really knows; especially not you. But hey, who cares?

[sabrina 1]

43. Anyone who has been tortured to the point of being

incapable of functioning, cannot be tried in a civil society. The reason they are doing this at Gitmo is because no decent person would now be able to convict this guy.

What a shameful country this is now. And I thought we were going to start fixing it when we elected Democrats in 2008.

[indepat]

48. As Johnny would have said: wrong doggy

breath! :patriot:

[ReggieVeggie]

44. HOLY CRAP!

You people are REALLY screwed up.

[Bluebear]

57. Thank you.

[readmoreoften]

2. Rec'd up to zero.

[ProSense]

3. Yup

Obama 0, Congress 1

[DeSwiss]

4. The MIC.....

...is in-charge and always has been since Ike. That's what he was trying to warn everyone about in his farewell message. But it was already too late even then. Now Obama knows who really runs things in this country.

- And so will everyone else as soon as they open their eyes.....

K&R

[gratuitous]

5. I am such a dumbass

Here I thought the Attorney General was in charge of the Department of Justice. But I am reliably informed that in compliance with this year's fashions, I must (must, Must, MUST) trim my principles to fit. So long, slavish devotion to that quaint old document! Good-bye ideals of liberty and justice for all! It's time to get behind our party's anointed, and work, work, work to avoid a hellish turn to the right. By hellishly turning to the right.

Don't worry about the horse being blind boys, just load the wagon! John Madden said that.

[upi402]

55. great post

Thanks for the humorous twist!

[spanone]

6. blame congress....they refused to fund it. should Obama pay for it out of his pocket?

Holder said at a news conference that he and the White House "reluctantly" reversed course because Congress passed legislation in December barring the use of federal funds to transfer detainees from Guantanamo to the U.S. In addition, he said, relatives of the nearly 3,000 people who were killed almost a decade ago in the attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon were losing patience.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

25. Don't bring facts stated in the article here.

Some posters don't want people to look past the headline. ;)

[Taverner]

46. Yeah Obama can't do a thing! His hands are tied! He was dead at the time!

Wait....look at this:



OOOGABOOOGA!!!!

The Palin's gonna get you!!!

[Starbucks Anarchist]

47. Even for you, this post is bizarre.

[gimama]

7. admits defeat while asking for voters' "support"..

My President continues to disappoint me.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[roguevalley]

10. wow. ad hominen attack. banned here. and people can think here

what they want. shove off.

[jberryhill]

12. Yes, people can want a preening egotistical maniac as president

We had one of those.

[sabrina 1]

49. George Bush fought for the right to a fair trial in this country?

How on earth could Obama fighting AGAINST Bush's treasonous, anti-Constitutional policies possibly be called a 'preening egotistical maniacal president'? If anything warranted a president becoming near maniacal it would be the destruction of the U.S. Constitution and anything he did to prevent that from happening would not only be justified, it is his duty to do so. He swore an oath to do so.

The 1993 WTC terrorists, the Blind Sheik Rahman and others, were tried in Manhattan regardless of the fears of some people that the trials might provoke terrorism. Those trials went on for years and NY was able to handle them just fine.

[davidthegnome]

11. I would say that depends on the issue

Pigheaded refusal to recognize what you call futility in this case... oh I would say it is indeed a constructive character trait. Don't admit defeat - change tactics.

[flvegan]

14. No, every at-bat is supposed to be an at-bat.

You want a baseball analogy, okay. If he's at the plate he needs to do what his coach/manager points him to do for the good of the team at the team. That might change with each pitch. Swing away, bunt, sacrifice fly, but at least he does what the fuck he's directed to do. Which...he does. Shame We the People aren't the coach/manager. Someone else is. Shame on that.

[jberryhill]

15. "We the people" being in this instance whom?

Because I certainly hope you don't mean the majority that opposes running these trials the way they are supposed to be run.

[flvegan]

18. The people that elected him.

IOW, not the corporations that have controlled him.

[jberryhill]

22. And you asked all these people what they want?

I always see the teabaggers going on about how government is not responding to "we the people" meaning them and their parasites.

This one is a huge issue to me and I am very disappointed.

However, the notion that "corporations" give a damn how these prosecutions are conducted is silly. Yeah, he was outgunned on this one because somehow these "corporations" told him not to hold trials.

There will be another round of suits out of this, and the end of this horrid story will be kicked further down the road, but could you please identify which corporations dictated that they be tried by a military tribunal than a civilian court. I gotta hear this.

[elleng]

13. 'Holder spoke with a tone of resignation,

acknowledging that the administration’s hands had been effectively tied by members of Congress opposed to any transfer of Guantánamo detainees to the US.

“Sadly, this case has been marked by needless controversy since the beginning,” Holder said. “The prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators should never have been about settling ideological arguments or scoring political points.”'

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2011/0404/In-abrupt-reversal-9-11-suspects-to-get-Guantanamo-military-tribunals

[DeSwiss]

17. This is where being a "constitutional lawyer" comes in handy for President Obama.

You see, President Obama can disregard the Constitution and Congress when he needs to bomb the shit out of someone, say like... oh... ahh.... err... Libya, for example. Particularly when the UN gives him it's blessing because he's "preventing a massacre." (In this case the words "preventing a massacre" can be interpreted as meaning "killing people in such a way as to disrupt oil exports.")

However, he can alternately disregard the Constitution and still listen to Congress when applying the due process clause to terrorist suspects.

- I'm sure that most of us never knew that the words in the Constitution could mean the exact opposite of what they say until he showed us how it can be done.......

[apples and oranges]

29. You think Obama went into Libya just because he wanted to bomb the shit out of someone?

In the midst of everything going on in the US, you think he wanted to get involved with Libya to "bomb the shit out of" them? Really?

[jberryhill]

30. Sure. And he hides his birth certificate because his father is George HW Bush

I read it here on DU

[DeSwiss]

36. Not father....

...but they are related. And with http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/FOX_Obama_related_to_Bush_Cheney_1017.html">Cheney too!

- Eww.

[DeSwiss]

35. His motives.....

...can only be a matter of speculation for any of us. I doubt that he "wanted" to bomb Libya. But someone did and they won - the Tomahawks flew.

I am simply pointing out here that this obsequious acknowledgment by Atty. Gen. Holder of the administration's relative "powerlessness" in the face of a defiant Congress on this issue, is at odds with the http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/31/961975/-Which-Shows-More-Contempt:-the-Ugly-Truth-or-a-Patent-Lie">staunch-"inyourface"-position that Secretary Clinton took, last week telling Congress that they would have ignored them anyway even if they hadn't wanted the administration to bomb Libya.

- Ironic, much?

[noise]

38. Amazing how that works

Typically the contradiction is ignored.

[elleng]

32. He consulted members of congressional leadership about Libya,

and Congress has made it impossible to prosecute guantanamo inmates other than militarily AT guantanamo.

[DeSwiss]

37. See above....

...post http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=813075&mesg_id=814071">#35. ;)

[leftstreet]

16. K&R

[TransitJohn]

19. Wasn't that place supposed to be closed a year and a half ago?

:sarcasm:

[Bluebear]

39. lol

[BeFree]

20. The secrets of 9/11 remain hidden

At a fair trail, the secrets of 9/11 would have been revealed.

Empire simply could not let that happen.

[Rex]

23. I remember when they called in all the 'important' people to explain

the truth and people left thinking the truth was worse than the 'official story' or more outlandish. Wish I was a fly on the wall for THAT meeting. The govt is never wrong, it will be our achilles heel imo.

[BeFree]

31. I think they figure

....we can't handle the truth.
And they are probably right.

And yes, this idea that the government wouldn't lie, is the lie.
Ah well, looks like karma is all we'll ever get. And I'd say it will take a few lifetimes to even out.

[Rex]

33. It could be true that the average American would freakout

I can believe that. I'm not sure if we get karma anymore, seems to be a surcharge on everything nowadays.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[apples and oranges]

24. On MSNBC today, someone was asked what would happen if any Gitmo suspects

were acquitted in civilian court. He would not answer! He just said: That wouldn't happen. Wouldn't happen? So that means the civilian court trials would be fixed? If so, what makes that a more just situation over Gitmo?

At this point, all we can strive for is to make sure no one is being tortured or mistreated while there. We can continue to be up in arms about this, but at the end of the day, nobody wants such trials in their backyard. At least then, if someone is innocent, they can be released quietly without the whole thing becoming a farce.

[whatchamacallit]

27. He's owned and we're pwned (nt)

[Karmadillo]

28. In the clearing stands a boxer, And a fighter by his trade.

nt

[Scurrilous]

34. You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. n/t

[Paradoxical]

40. Despicable.

[Raine]

41. Continual folding

:argh:

[ReggieVeggie]

45. Without a public option, insurance companies will run free

when did I say that?

[Ignis]

51. 2006: The Audacity of Hope / 2011: The Audacity of Folding

I liked the first book better. The sequel sucks.

[JoePhilly]

50. Congress had no part in this, none ... absolutely none.

Maybe if you are an IDIOT.

[Logical]

52. No one supported him on this at all. I don't blame him.

[Bluebear]

53. Baloney.

[Logical]

54. Proof please?

[Bluebear]

56. You prove that "NOBODY supported him on this".