Red State Renegade

The “Justice” Department has announced that the US will try in a military “courtroom” the 6 Al Qaida 9/11 conspirators currently in custody at Guantanamo. These suspects have been incarcerated for some 6 years, but will now be tried under rules that will allow the admission of hearsay as evidence, and sentenced by a panel of military personnel who have no judicial or other legal experience, and certainly will not be a jury of their peers.

None of this is really a surprise, but the timing is inherently suspect.

Here’s the point: the military (and by extension, the Commander in Chief) now control the pace and potential impact of the event. Here are the possibilities:

1. The proceedings could drag on into November, keeping the 9/11 reminder in the forefront and fanning the flames of fear and fanaticism to boost the Republican candidate.

2. The proceedings could end with a guilty verdict prior to November, with the sentence of death imposed right around election time, serving the purpose of illustrating how the Republicans “keep us safe”. (I could see them televising the execution on Halloween.)

The sad news is that in seeking and imposing the death penalty this administration will only further alienate both our friends and enemies, as many of our allies are opposed to the death penalty on principle, and the enemies we are attempting to punish will be view as martyrs, ultimately providing the fuel for another attack on US soil down the road

UPDATE:
Other details on the military kangaroo-court trials:

– Detainees cannot have lawyers present
– The Pentagon decides on what evidence is presented
– Unlike normal criminal trials, the government is not obligated to turn over evidence that the defendant might be innocent

And the latest:

Yesterday, The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court to limit judges’ authority to scrutinize evidence against detainees at Guantanamo Bay, saying that such scrutiny jeopardizes national security.