In his most recent update to the post, he says/asks the following:

UPDATE III: Obama's just-issued statement announcing his support for military commissions is here.  I said most of what I think is worth saying about this, but I'll just add the following:

(1) Can anyone reconcile Obama's statement today with his August, 2008 statement that we should prosecute accused terrorists "through our courts and our Uniform Code of Military Justice," or with the above-excerpted criticisms of Bush's military commissions?; (2) Obama doesn't even bother to argue any reasons why we cannot try accused terrorists in our already-extant court system; (3) for those who want to claim that Bush's torture prevents obtaining convictions in a real court, Obama is purporting to bar the use of evidence obtained via torture, so how would his military commissions address that problem any better than real courts would?; (4) during the Bush era, civilian courts had a far better record of convicting accused terrorists than military commissions did, including convictions of Jose Padilla, Ali al-Marri, Richard Reid, John Walker Lindh, and Zacharais Moussoui, at least three of whom (Padilla, al-Marri and Lindh) were severely mistreated; if we could convict them in real courts, why can't we convict the other accused terrorists who are actually guilty? (5) if the state is willing to accord due process only when it is guaranteed that it can win, but then creates a new system of diminished due process whenever it believes it cannot win, the guarantee of due process, for rather obvious reasons, becomes completely illusory ("we'll give due process as long as we're sure we can win, and if we can't, we'll give you something less").

It's hard to reconcile Obama's latest policy with what he has said in the recent past - it might even be impossible.

1. Three frustrating summer offensives in Afghanistan.

2. Stabilizing the Bankster system with tax money that mysteriously ends up in stock options for Bank executives.

3. A really great book titled:  "It's Great To be the President" about being the first black President and how he tried very hard to do something about healthcare but failed.

I once believed that the military tribunal system could be salvaged and made functional. Thanks to posts from Jeralyn and others, I've since changed my mind. The entire proposed system of military tribunals has been thoroughly botched and compromised, with military detainees now having languished for years in Gitmo and possibly elsewhere without ever being charged.

If we believe at all in our American concepts of justice and fairness, present circumstances now dictate that legal jurisdiction over said detainees should be transferred forthwith from the Pentagon to the Dept. of Justice and the federal courts.

Let the Pentagon concentrate solely on figuring out how to disengage this country from the Iraq War, and leave to Justice Dept. attorneys, federally-appointed public defenders and federal judges the gnarly and thankless task of untangling the years-old legal travesty that the Bush administration, CIA and Pentagon created at Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.