Obama Issues Waivers on Military Trials
Last year, the Obama administration strongly objected to a Congressional mandate that foreigners suspected of being Al Qaeda operatives be held in military custody rather than go through the civilian criminal justice system.
On Tuesday, President Obama sought to have the last word, issuing waivers that would exempt sweeping categories of future prisoners from the requirement, which became law in December.
The rule, imposed by Congress, applies only to a narrow category of terrorism suspects: those who are not American citizens, who are deemed to be part of Al Qaeda or its allies and who are suspected of participating in a terrorist plot against the United States or its allies.
The provision, which the administration called unwise and unnecessary when it was proposed by lawmakers, became another flash point in a long-running debate over whether terrorism suspects should be handled exclusively as wartime prisoners, as many Republicans argue, or whether the civilian criminal justice system should remain an option, a more flexible approach backed by the Obama administration.The White House prepared the waivers as part of required guidelines instructing the executive branch on how to put the new rule into effect. The waivers would apply, according to the guidelines, to any case in which officials believed that placing a detainee in military custody could impede counterterrorism cooperation with the detainee’s home government or interfere with efforts to secure the person’s cooperation or confession.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/us/politics/obama-issues-waivers-on-military-trials-for-foreign-qaeda-suspects.html
Besides, the Guantanamo military justice system has been HORRIBLY inefficient...yet the (R) party insists on using it? The LA Times reported in Nov. 2010: "Guantanamo has produced only five convictions of the accused terrorists while U.S. federal courts have resolved more than 400 terrorism cases involving suspects who were not held at Guantanamo."
Thomas Sowell politically cherry-picked when to challenge "rhetoric vs. reality" in this column "Bowing to 'World Opinion'" in opining against trying foreign terrorists in US federal courts. Yet one wonders why the right has been so silent about the sheer failure of Guantanamo?
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