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Guantanamo Military Commissions Chief Quits

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Thu Nov 16, 2006 at 12:49:10 PM EST
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The Wall St. Journal reports (free link):

John Altenburg said that when he accepted the job as “appointing authority” for the military commissions, he expected Guantanamo trials to start in short order—and that he’d be back at his job at the Washington law and lobbying firm Greenberg Traurig by mid-2005. Instead, the military commissions collapsed under a concerted assault by military and civilian defense attorneys, who eventually won a landmark Supreme Court decision in June declaring the entire project unlawful.

....No one has been selected to fill the slot, and it could remain vacant until the likely new defense secretary, Robert Gates, takes office.

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    Guantanamo Military Commissions Chief Quits | 2 comments (2 topical)

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    A couple interesting factoids from the article (none / 0) (#1)
    by scribe on Thu Nov 16, 2006 at 01:03:34 PM EST
    and elsewhere.

    The now-former-appointing authority went back to work at Greenberg Traurig.

    That's Jack Abramoff's old firm.

    And, according to the article, there are 20 trials coming up for action - 10 previously designated prisoners, and 10 new ones.  Shortly after the turn of the year.  That's before the district courts and courts of appeals can rule on the Torture Act's constitutionality, by the way.

    None of those twenty prisoners are from among the 14 "high-value" prisoners shipped in from the CIA's secret gulag last September.  You remember them?  Bushie said he had, had, had to have the Torture Act right, right, right now so he could try those evil motherf-ers.  Those guys.

    None of them are going to be tried.

    Yet another instance of Bushie punking the judiciary and the Constitution.

    And just where does this guy... (none / 0) (#2)
    by Bill Arnett on Thu Nov 16, 2006 at 02:04:04 PM EST
    ...get off assuming that there would be ANY kind of speedy or fair hearings for anybody at Gitmo?

    Gitmo is America's version of an oubliette, a place were people are sent to be forgotten and never seen again.

    Makes ya SO proud, don't it?

    Guantanamo Military Commissions Chief Quits | 2 comments (2 topical)

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