Judge Halts War-Crime Trial at Guantanamo
So there are hopeful bits in there like this:
The judge also said that in asserting that the Guantánamo prisoners are unlawful combatants and outside the reach of the Geneva Conventions, “the government has asserted a position starkly different from the positions and behavior of the United States in previous conflicts, one that can only weaken the United States’ own ability to demand application of the Geneva applications to Americans captured during armed conflicts abroad.”
Professor Katyal told reporters that while the ruling on Monday applied only to the Hamdan case, “the spirit of the ruling extends more broadly, perhaps to everything that is going on here in Guantánamo Bay.”
But note also the immediate government reaction:
Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman, said in a statement, “The process struck down by the district court today was carefully crafted to protect America from terrorists while affording those charged with violations of the laws of war with fair process, and the department will make every effort to have this process restored through appeal.”
Mr. Corallo said, “By conferring protected legal status under the Geneva Conventions on members of Al Qaeda, the judge has put terrorism on the same legal footing as legitimate methods of waging war.”
Equally unnerrving is the fact that the paper of record feels the need to include a “who appointed him” tag with the judge–are we not even pretending any more that the decisions are meant to be based on application of law and sense, rather than policitally motivated?
The United States military did not conduct Article 5 tribunals at the end of the Afghanistan war, saying they were unnecessary. Government lawyers argued that the president had already used his authority to deem members of Al Qaeda unlawful combatants who would be deprived of P.O.W. status.
But Judge Robertson, who was nominated to be on the court by President Bill Clinton, said that that was not enough. “The president is not a panel,” he wrote. “The law of war includes the Third Geneva Convention, which requires trial by court-martial as long as Hamdan’s P.O.W. status is in doubt.”
