You may have read yesterday that Obama is going to continue using the military tribunals for a small number of prisoners, but he'll be giving them more legal rights than they had before. Did he just cave? I'm not so sure. While the decision to continue some trials by tribunal would seem to contradict his earlier opposition to the process as "flawed," if in fact the detainees are being given adequate rights - and the question is whether they are - then is there a justification for not simply prosecuting them in the courts? The articles I've read don't make it terribly clear why they can't be prosecuted in the federal court system. Though, perhaps the reason is buried in this NYT article.
And in a clear rebuke to Mr. Obama, Democratic leaders refused to include $80 million the White House had sought for closing Guantánamo. Senate Democrats also said the administration must provide a plan for relocating more than 200 detainees still held at the prison. The Senate Appropriations Committee advanced its version of the military spending bill Thursday with the $80 million but banned the transfer of detainees to the United States.It appears we're having a case of "terrorist NIMBY." Let's prosecute them all, even if they're just innocent farmers, and lock 'em up forever, damn it! But not in my backyard, thank you very much. It seems Republicans and Democrats in Congress are afraid of having any of these terrah-ists shipped to prisons in their own states. Which means, of course, they'll all be shipped to DC, since we don't have any real representation in Congress. Of course, the joke then would be that every single member of Congress who didn't want these guys in their own backyard would in fact have them in their own backyard, in DC.
