Word: gitmo
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...ongoing effort to speed up the process may dig the President in deeper: when Obama took office, the unorthodox practice of adjudicating terrorist cases at Gitmo through the use of military commissions seemed to be headed for the same ash bin as other discredited parts of George W. Bush's war on terrorism, thanks to skepticism in the U.S. courts about their fairness and Obama's campaign promises to do away with them. But on May 15, Obama revived the idea of commissions for an uncertain number of detainees at the controversial prison, pledging to help Congress refashion tribunals into...
...Department of Justice spokesman told TIME that while many alleged terrorists will be tried in federal criminal court, reformed commissions would be a "viable option" for certain cases, including those in which intelligence sources, methods and evidence could be compromised in a less restrictive setting. (See portraits of Gitmo detainees...
...tribunals will not clear the Gitmo backlog of 221 cases as quickly as hoped. Once Obama signs the law, the Department of Defense will have 90 days to draft rules spelling out how the reformed panels would operate. With new evidentiary standards, government prosecutors will have to review their cases - about a dozen commission proceedings have begun - and determine, along with the judges and defense lawyers, whether any evidence was obtained by coercion or inadmissible hearsay. Previously denied access to prosecution witnesses would have to be provided. Defendants whose options had been limited to military attorneys in the past would...
...Once the refined wheels of military justice begin to turn, there's still a risk they could grind to a halt. Many of Gitmo's detainees are charged with material support for terrorism or terrorist groups, one of the offenses Congress set aside for the commissions, as it did in 2006. But such offenses have not been recognized as war crimes by the Geneva Convention, nor have they been brought before military tribunals before. Administration legal officials have expressed concern that civilian appeals courts would reverse hard-won convictions on grounds that material support offenses should not have been tried...
...table, despite growing public desire to end the war. The true aim of the hawks, or all-outers, in this maneuver is to discredit the real policy alternative - the middle ground. Their ploy is to portray the middle way as simply a cover for getting out. (See pictures of Gitmo detainees...