tagged w/ Military tribunals
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- Morris Davis speaks bluntly about some of President Barack Obama's policy decisions.
"There's a pair of testicles somewhere between the Capital Building and the White House that fell off the president after Election Day [2008]," said Davis, an Air Force colonel who spent two years as the chief prosecutor of Guantanamo military commissions, during an interview at his Washington, DC, office over the summer and in email correspondence over the past several months. "He got his butt kicked. Not just with Guantanamo but with national security in general. I'm sure there are a few areas here and there where there have been 'change,' but to me it seems like a third Bush term when it comes to national security."
Davis is "hugely disappointed" that Obama reneged on a campaign promise to reject military commissions for "war on terror" detainees, which human rights advocates and defense attorneys have condemned as unconstitutional.
The first military commission initiated by the Obama administration got underway earlier this week with the arraignment of Abd Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, who is facing terrorism and murder charges, began earlier this week. If convicted, Nashiri, one of three so-called high-value detainees that the Bush administration admitted was subjected to the drowning technique known as waterboarding and other brutal torture methods at CIA black site prisons, could be executed.
George W. Bush signed an executive order authorizing military commissions for terrorist suspects captured after 9/11 ten years ago today. Davis, recalling a speech Obama gave during an August 2007 campaign stop at the Wilson Center in Washington, said it seemed Obama was on track to make good on his campaign promise of halting the discredited tribunals.
"I will reject a legal framework that does not work," candidate Obama said. "I have faith in America's courts and I have faith in our [Judge Advocate Generals] ... As president, I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act and adhere to the Geneva Conventions ... Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists ... Our Constitution works. We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers and that justice is not arbitrary."
Davis shakes his head.
"What happened to that guy?" Obama "has now embraced and kissed on the lips the whole Bush concept [of military commissions]. He failed to keep a single promise he made in that speech."
A White House spokesman declined to comment for this story. In the past, administration officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder, have blamed Democrats and Republicans in Congress for thwarting the government's efforts to prosecute terrorist suspects in federal courts by withholding funding to hold trials. While that is true in the case of self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators, it does not explain the decision Obama made in May 2009--four months after he was sworn in as president--to resurrect military commissions.
What is clear is that Obama succumbed to pressure from Defense Department officials and Republicans in Congress, notably Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), to hold the tribunals. Moreover, when Obama announced the return of military commissions he had just endured a month of blistering attacks from Republicans and former Vice President Dick Cheney for releasing the infamous "torture memos" drafted by Bush administration lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee.
Criticism Leads to Firing
Davis resigned in protest as Guantanamo's chief prosecutor in October 2007, because he said Bush administration officials politicized the high-profile military commissions cases of alleged 9/11 conspirators and al-Qaeda members he was gearing up to prosecute. Turning his back on military commissions ended his military career. He was denied a meritorious service award because he was told he served dishonorably by speaking out about the tribunals.
Davis continued to publicly oppose the military commission process and he also criticized the Obama administration for refusing to hold accountable key Bush officials who implemented a policy authorizing the torture of "war on terror" detainees.
But, as Davis discovered, it's no safer criticizing a Democratic administration's policies than it was when a Republican was in the White House.
Indeed, two years ago, Davis was fired from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), where he began working in December 2008 as the assistant director of the defense, trade and foreign affairs division, after he wrote an op-ed in November 2009 for The Wall Street Journal and a letter to the editor published in The Washington Post that were highly critical of military commissions and the decision the Obama administration made to sidestep federal courts in favor of the flawed tribunals for some alleged terrorists.
CRS Director Daniel Mulhollan, who fired Davis, said he "failed to adhere to the CRS policy on Outside Speaking and Writing," showing "poor judgment and discretion ... not consistent with 'acceptable service.'"
Davis sued Mulhollan and the Library of Congress, which oversees CRS, claiming they violated his First Amendment rights. A hearing in the case was held earlier this week. Davis said he's "optimistic that by 2018 I will be reinstated to my former position."
"On Veteran's Day, it [was] two years since I wrote the Wall Street Journal op-ed and we're not even at the discovery stage yet," Davis said. "The wheels of justice grinds fine, but it grinds slowly."
"Broken Beyond Repair"
While Davis is one of the most visible and verbal critics, he's not the only military prosecutor who has been outspoken about Obama and Bush's detainee policies.
Lt. Col. Darrell Vandeveld is a former military commissions prosecutor who also resigned in protest. In 2009, after Obama embraced the legal framework he rejected as a presidential candidate, Vandeveld testified before Congress, stating, "the military commission system is broken beyond repair."
"The military commissions cannot be fixed, because their very creation - and the only reason to prefer military commissions over federal criminal courts for the Guantanamo detainees - can now be clearly seen as an artifice, a contrivance, to try to obtain prosecutions based on evidence that would not be admissible in any civilian or military prosecution anywhere in our nation," Vandeveld said.
Davis said, "Obama knows what the right thing to do is."
"But let's face it, this is all about politics," Davis said. "Nobody is going to get reelected in 2012 campaigning on standing up for the rights of detainees. Nobody wants to be seen as being soft on terrorism."
One of the fundamental questions that has yet to be answered in the debate over the merits of military commissions, Davis noted, is what is the source of the rights for the detainees facing trial?
"If it's the Constitution, then a military commission is deficient and it would require a court-martial or a trial in federal court to pass constitutional muster," Davis said. "If the basis is in the Geneva Conventions, then a military commission - one run by the military without political interference - could meet the requirement."
More at the link- Morris Davis speaks bluntly about some of President Barack Obama's policy... more
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Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will, after all, be tried in Guantánamo by a military tribunal generated largely negative media coverage for the Administration. The decision is being portrayed as a capitulation on the President's part – one that upset some of his liberal supporters. The Washington Post reports, "The White House, which has played a central role in formulating Guantanamo Bay policy, did not issue a statement on the reversal and referred all questions to the Justice Department."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/khalid-sheik-mohammed-to-be-tried-by-military-commission-officials-say/2011/04/04/AFhlS8cC_story.html?hpid=z2Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid... more
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A serving US Army officer who told a court he feels that the Guantanamo Bay prison camps should be closed down has been removed from a jury hearing allegations of war crimes against an alleged child soldier. Among the seven jurors remaining on the panel are officers who have lost close friends or colleagues fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.A serving US Army officer who told a court he feels that the Guantanamo Bay prison... more
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An attorney for Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr expressed outrage this week over a ruling by a U.S. military judge allowing Khadr's confessions to interrogators to be used as evidence against him in his murder and terrorism conspiracy trial at Guantanamo.An attorney for Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr expressed outrage this week over a ruling... more
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Human Rights Watch says military commissions legislation that President Barack Obama signed into law this week does not remedy the commissions' inherent flaws.Human Rights Watch says military commissions legislation that President Barack Obama... more
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President Barack Obama will restart military tribunals for a small number of Guantanamo detainees, reviving a trial system he once said the Bush administration had abused, but with new legal protections for terror suspects, U.S. officials said.President Barack Obama will restart military tribunals for a small number of... more
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Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration will announce Friday that it will continue to use military commissions to prosecute some terrorism suspects, current and former officials said -- reversing a campaign promise to abolish the controversial tribunals started under President George W. Bush.
Human rights groups reacted with anger Thursday, arguing that any trials under the commissions would be widely viewed as tainted and that the Obama administration was duplicating Bush's mistakes.
The administration intends to try some of the detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in federal courts, as President Obama has pledged. But officials have concluded that some detainees can only be tried in military tribunals, said a U.S. official familiar with the changes.
Gabor Rona, the international legal director of Human Rights First, said the international community was unlikely to view the tribunals as legitimate.
"Everyone knows the military commissions have been a dismal failure," Rona said. "The results of the cases will be suspect around the globe."
The White House will announce major changes to the tribunal system. The revisions will ban the use of any evidence obtained through coercion and restrict the use of hearsay evidence.
The rule changes also will give detainees more latitude in choosing lawyers to represent them, the U.S. official said.
But those changes are seen as cosmetic by critics both in and out of government.
For example, under the Military Commissions Act, the law enacted by Congress in 2006 to alter and legally sanction the system, there were strict rules against coerced evidence. In practice, military judges have refused to allow any testimony about coerced evidence.
During the presidential campaign, Obama promised to try detainees being held at Guantanamo in federal courts or in U.S. military courts, under court-martial proceedings. In his first week in office, Obama ordered all military commission trials halted for 120 days and subsequently announced he would close Guantanamo within a year.
But the administration has put off difficult decisions about what to do with the detainees. As officials reviewed the cases, as well as the political ramifications of shifting them to federal courts, they concluded they would have to continue to use the tribunals.
Officials are particularly worried that more restrictive evidence rules in federal courts could trip them up.
"They took a look at all the cases," the U.S. official said. "They compared and contrasted and decided the military commissions are the best way to go."
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not been made public. The White House declined to comment.
Although suspects have a right to confront their accusers in federal courts, military commissions allow for indirect, hearsay evidence. Under Bush administration rules, the defense had to show why such evidence should be prohibited. Under Obama's changes, the burden of proving the hearsay evidence will fall on the prosecution.
julian.barnes@latimes.comReporting from Washington -- The Obama administration will announce Friday that it... more
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It was quintessential Guantánamo, where things are rarely what they seem. The Pentagon’s spokesmen, for example, repeat like a mantra that the detention camp delivers “safe and humane” care. But military investigators have documented a history that includes treatment of one detainee who was isolated, deprived of sleep and forced to perform dog tricks.
Another military mantra is that the tribunal is open and transparent. But no one can go to this remote naval station to attend the sessions without military orders. At the tribunal itself, where many seats are empty, journalists are accompanied at all times by military escorts, who stand guard even outside the latrine.
So it was in keeping with the contradictions of Guantánamo that the Hamdan trial in many ways looked like an American trial and in many ways did not.
There were secret filings. There were closed sessions. There were unexplained mysteries. After a session was cut short because a participant was said to be ill, a military spokeswoman said it was not Mr. Hamdan. The next day, a different spokeswoman disclosed that it had indeed been Mr. Hamdan, who had, she said, been seen at a hospital for flulike symptoms.It was quintessential Guantánamo, where things are rarely what they seem. The... more
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An alleged al Qaida fighter accused of training the Sept. 11 hijackers sought access to classified evidence Thursday, reassuring the war court here that, once convicted, he'll take U.S. secrets to his grave.
''If I am going to receive the death sentence, this evidence will go with me,'' declared Waleed bin Attash, a one-legged Yemeni captive accused of running an al Qaida camp in Afghanistan.
After execution, he said, the secrets "will be better protected than in the hands of the FBI and CIA.''
Bin Attash made the remarks at a hearing before Judge Ralph Kohlmann, a Marine colonel who will preside at the war crimes trial of five Guantánamo captives accused of conspiring in the mass murder of 2,973 people on Sept. 11, 2001.
At least four of the men want to defend themselves. Kohlmann has been warning them that, even as their own lawyers, they can't see or challenge classified evidence until their trial.An alleged al Qaida fighter accused of training the Sept. 11 hijackers sought access... more
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