On military tribunals, Obama should know better

[CHIMO]

When people warned of unrealistically high expectations of what Barack Obama would do in office, this is exactly what they meant.

Yes, Obama talked tough on the military commission system during his election campaign, describing it at one point as "an enormous failure". And yes, one of the most celebrated parts of his inaugural speech was the much thirsted for assurance that under his leadership the US would "reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals". Few will forget the acknowledgment too that "our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint".

But now the Obama administration has moved from soaring rhetoric, it is trying to work out what to do with those problematic detainees it inherited from the "war on terror". Legal and constitutional ping pong has been played out for over seven years on the rights of these men. Are they protected by the Geneva conventions as prisoners of war? Are they entitled to American constitutional rights as "enemy combatants" detained in foreign jurisdictions? Are they protected by well-established legal principles guaranteeing trial by civilian courts, or by a "neutral" decision maker, and do military tribunals fulfil either of these requirements?

The answer to these questions is complex, and in light of this perhaps it should be less surprising that Obama today announced the return of military tribunals for detainees at Guantánamo.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/may/15/obama-military-trials

[stillcool]

1. and when people warned that..

Obama was not the be all and end all to your wildest dreams..this is what they meant. Especially those that read or heard what he had to say about the legal limbo these people have been in for years, the lack of evidence due to torture, the fact that some were indeed guilty but new evidence had to be gathered independent of that obtained through torture, that a new legal framework needed to be established....you know..all that thinky stuff.