Obama Plans Guantanamo Close, US Trials

[SemiCharmedQuark]

WASHINGTON — President-elect Obama's advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a "sad chapter in American history" and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to handle the detainees. But he has offered few details on what he planned to do once the facility is closed.

Under plans being put together in Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

A third group of detainees _ the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information _ might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks. Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans aren't final.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/10/obama-plans-guantanamo-cl_n_142593.html

[Tommy_Carcetti]

1. Thank God.

Our image will be improved just by that measure alone.

[Danger Mouse]

2. How will we handle these sensitive national security issue trials?

I'm curious about this.

[berni_mccoy]

3. These people may need to get enemy POW status. If they are enemy combatants

From Afghanistan, then they should be treated as enemy POWs.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. Previous terrorism cases have been prosecuted in normal courts

Richard Reid (shoe bomber), Zacarias Moussaui (the so-called "20th hijacker"), and the plotters/conspirators of the first WTC attack in 1993.

None of them as far as I know were ever shipped to Gitmo and tried under Bush's "military commissions" and AFAIK their trials worked fine in the "normal" court system.

Bush's insistence that we MUST try the suspected terrorists currently being held at Gitmo under an entirely different "rigged" system has always suggested to me that, at least for some (most? all?) of them, his (mis-)administration is uncertain about the strength of their cases against them- so much so that they apparently feel like they have to have a "stacked deck" in their favor in order to win convictions and appear "strong on terrorism". Heck, even those individuals whom have been found innocent of the worst charges and have already served the appropriate sentences for other lesser ones are not even guaranteed their release at the moment.

[Lumpsum]

5. They won't be open to the public or press. That's up to the judge, though. nt

[stray cat]

6. Closing Guatanomo would be great for international relations