NYT: Military Prosecutors to Seek Death for 6 Gitmo Detainees
The NYT is reporting that military prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty against six men currently being detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Is this an appropriate response to 9/11 (and the GWOT), or a bloodlust move for closure in the waning days of the Bush administration?
According to a NYT article this morning, military prosecutors are going to announce, as early as today, that they are seeking death sentences against six detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba:
Military prosecutors have decided to seek the death penalty for six Guantánamo detainees who are to be charged with central roles in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, government officials who have been briefed on the charges said Sunday.
The officials said the charges would be announced at the Pentagon as soon as Monday and were likely to include numerous war-crimes charges against the six men, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the former Qaeda operations chief who has described himself as the mastermind of the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people…
I’m sure that those on the right who are afflicted with blood lust and a need for revenge (beyond destroying two countries and bankrupting our own in the process of revenge already) will cheer such a ruling. Under normal circumstances, I don’t support the death penalty (even with all of the checks and balances in the U.S. judicial system).
In the case of the military tribunals at Gitmo, I’m even less supportive, because I do not believe that checks and balances are in place to assure proper trials, much less authorize and carry out death sentences. Perhaps even more to the point, such acts would martyr the men involved and potentially subject Americans to similar treatment around the world.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone, though. The U.S. was quick to facilitate the hanging of Saddam and some of his henchmen, without appeal, almost immediately at the conclusion of his kangaroo court trial in Iraq. The Gitmo tribunals will be held in secret, at an unspecified time in the future, and most certainly we’ll wake up one morning to the news that these six men have been hanged.
I have no sympathy for these six men, or indeed, most of the detainees at Gitmo, but neither do I have confidence that anyone in military custody at Gitmo will receive a fair trial and appeals under the normal rules of evidence required in the U.S. court system.
In short summary, here’s what this is all about: getting the deed done (for various reasons) before Bush leaves office.
I have no sympathy for these six men, or indeed, most of the detainees at Gitmo, but neither do I have confidence that anyone in military custody at Gitmo will receive a fair trial and appeals under the normal rules of evidence required in the U.S. court system.
if these men are in fact guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in masterminding 9/11 then I have absolutely no problem with them being put to death. However, I no longer trust my government especially the executive branch, to be the sole arbiters of innocence or guilt when we have devolved into a state where anyone can be kidnapped by the government for any reason and tortured just because some bureaucrat with a hotline to the Chimp in Chief gets wood at seeing people squirm.
If they’re guilty then the administration needs to prove it in a regular court of law with regular evidentiary rules in a public trial. Because if in difficult times we abandon the very principles that make up our legal system then we are no better than the barbarians we’re claiming to fight.
A public trial might even help morale in this country. I know I for one will never trust it again.
It is impossible to trust that these folks will get a fair trial with this Administration, so Richard is correct, this is a show trial to try desperately to renovate the Bush reputation. One conviction is what they want, of just one Gitmo suspect.