Pentagon Pushes For ‘High-Profile’ Convictions Of Detainees Ahead Of ‘08 Elections
Pentagon Pushes For ‘High-Profile’ Convictions Of Detainees Ahead Of ‘08 Elections
Today, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, formerly the lead prosecutor for terrorism trials at Guantanamo Bay, tells the Washington Post that “[p]olitically motivated officials at the Pentagon” are pushing for “convictions of high-profile detainees ahead of the 2008 elections”:
Senior defense officials discussed in a September 2006 meeting the “strategic political value” of putting some prominent detainees on trial, said Air Force Col. Morris Davis. He said that he felt pressure to pursue cases that were deemed “sexy” over those that prosecutors believed were the most solid or were ready to go. [...]
“There was a big concern that the election of 2008 is coming up,” Davis said. “People wanted to get the cases going. There was a rush to get high-interest cases into court at the expense of openness.”
Davis confirms that discomfort over these pressures prompted his resignation earlier this month. When originally asked why he was stepping down, Davis said that the Pentagon had ordered him “not to communicate with the news media about my resignation or military commissions.”
In the past, the Bush administration has repeatedly played politics with terrorism prosecutions. In 2002, The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh wrote that the Justice Department went after the case of 9/11 hijacker Zacharias Moussaoui as a “splashy” political trial at the expense of stronger smaller trials:
The Moussaoui case has also contributed to discontent within the F.B.I. over what some see as a politicized Justice Department more eager to have splashy court victories than to protect intelligence resources. One senior F.B.I. official noted, with obvious disdain, that the Justice Department attorneys wanted to use raw intelligence from sensitive, ongoing investigations to bolster otherwise flagging counterintelligence or counterterrorism criminal cases.
Politics also enters into the administration’s decision of which detainees get to leave the prison. For example, two dozen Guantanamo detainees were cleared for transfer last year “even though U.S. military panels found they still posed a threat to the United States and its allies.” “What it says on your passport is more important than what it says in your ARB [Administrative Review Board],” notes the ACLU’s Ben Wizner, underscoring “that European citizens at Guantanamo were among the first to get out.”
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Ah yes, continued politization of every single, solitary aspect of government you can imagine.
Dog and pony show comin’ up, right on schedule!!!!
But, hey, after 7 years of the Endless, Incompetent Nightmare That Is The BuschCo Regimeâ„¢, did you expect anything different???
October 20th, 2007 at 2:23 pmIt won’t help.
∞
October 20th, 2007 at 2:23 pmCue up TrollBlatherâ„¢ canned response… 3… 2… 1… Action!!!
October 20th, 2007 at 2:24 pmwonder how Clinton will spin this in her favor…
October 20th, 2007 at 2:26 pmOld Hack…….LOL…Love your post’s…..Blessings
October 20th, 2007 at 2:32 pm“…’are pushing for “convictions of high-profile detainees ahead of the 2008 elections…’”
Another fine example of how bushco has bastardized our Constitution.
Follow the logic: One of the prime tenets of our justice system used to be that everybody was innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. A conviction occurred when and only when a guilty verdict was reached at the conclusion of the trial. These people speak nothing of the trials for the “high profile detainees.” They are pushing for CONVICTIONS with no trial or a trial with a predetermined outcome. This is a clear violation of our Constitution.
The trolls that would argue that they really meant fair trials but knew the detainees would be found guilty. This is just as illogical as the original push for conviction. There is no way in the world bushco is going to put any high profile detainee on trial if there is the slightest chance of a fair trial that will exonerate the detainee at the expense of bushco.
Just chalk it up as another nail in the bushco coffin–hopefully.
October 20th, 2007 at 2:38 pmBush&Co are not going to go quietly. Au contraire, they will make an extravagant show of prosecuting a “terrorist” and take the opportunity to show us how tough they are, and how we should succumb to their methods of keeping us “safe.”
October 20th, 2007 at 3:00 pmThe circus is coming to town – step right up folks.
The White House is practicing its shell game for the crowd.
Right you are Marie…Blessings
October 20th, 2007 at 3:02 pmThis too, will backfire and blow up in their faces, as the real story of how the torture chamber approach to interrorgation results in tainted ‘confessions’ will be under public scrutiny, even if convicted, the world will see this system for what it is.
October 20th, 2007 at 3:03 pmGood to read you here today RU and Clyde….How did you fare in the wind RU.? All’s well here, my beauties are still standing…..Hug your cute daughter for me…..Blessings
October 20th, 2007 at 3:08 pmWith any luck at all there may be some other high profile convictions to have an effect on the elections.
October 20th, 2007 at 3:14 pmWe can only hope, Nevar………Blessings
October 20th, 2007 at 3:15 pmGitMo should be closed, before 2007 comes to a close. Simple. Cut the funding and make them bring everyone to the US rather than hiding them in communist Cuba (the irony alone should be enough to accomplish this). We have supermax and i’m certain your favority government contractors are only too happy to build some more and some poor american community which lost this or that industry only too happy to locate it there. GitMo is a stain that will take decades to erase and it’s only use should be for the site of the GWBush Presidential Library.
October 20th, 2007 at 3:21 pmI doubt it has as much to do with influencing an election, as much as it does with the clock running out of dubya’s administration. They simply want to convict and incarcerate / execute these prisoners before a subsequent administration pulls the plug.
October 20th, 2007 at 3:24 pmI suspect Randi Rhodes was attacked by minorities, and was paid hush money to claim that she “fell”.
October 20th, 2007 at 3:25 pmI dont see how this will help politically as they are already imprisoned and already considered basically guilty..so they have a trial and they remain in gitmo…what changes?
October 20th, 2007 at 3:28 pmI just can’t take it anymore. Nothing, NOTHING, is beyond the pale.
It’s what happens when politics is put first before everything else — including (and especially) conscience.
October 20th, 2007 at 3:32 pmAll’s well here, my beauties are still standing…..Hug your cute daughter for me…..Blessings
Comment by Witch1 — October 20, 2007 @ 3:08 pm
Done, Sharon! Glad you came through it unscathed~
October 20th, 2007 at 4:49 pmIt blew over our swinging loveseat in the backyard, no damage done…
.
Is this WITH or WITHOUT Due Process?
Is this WITH or WITHOUT tortured confessions?
Is this WITH or WITHOUT Habeas Corpus Rights?
.
October 20th, 2007 at 7:02 pmThis also points out why it must be difficult to find foreign nationals who are willing to infiltrate a terrorist group for U.S. intelligence agencies. Think about it. Knowing how this administration operates and seeing what it’s done in the past, the odds are really good that a mole’s cover would be blown just to try and make Bush look good. And said mole would probably be tortured and killed in a very slow and painful way.
The Bush administration doesn’t take a breath without there being some kind of political motivation attached to it. Everything is political.
October 20th, 2007 at 8:28 pm“… what changes?”
Comment by Xisithrus — October 20, 2007 @ 3:28 pm
Public executions on primetime television?
“Tonight… Only on Fox!!!”
October 20th, 2007 at 8:34 pmYes, a plot to ship LIVE nuclear warheads to the Middle East to blow up American troops there and give cassus belli for a US war with Iran (and give FOX NEWS ratings) is all due to 98 troopers who are all guilty of…
…
following the orders they were given by higher ups, who were given orders by Cheney’s people.
You all realize that some of those 98 soldiers are the ones who BLEW THE WHISTLE on this plot right? Right?
October 20th, 2007 at 9:10 pmI hope they do have these trials right before the elections–so that the American public can see how the Republicans have absolutely trashed our Constitution. They can’t possibly be this stu. . .uh, well, maybe so.
October 20th, 2007 at 9:21 pm#18 — Good grief, no kidding. Take a look at what happened with Valerie Plame — they’ll even out our own people if it “helps” their cause. That is totally unforgiveable. Wonder if they’ve done any damage assessment on how that will effect recruiting by the CIA for covert agents?
And now we know for sure that she was working on the WMD–Iran issue — bastards.
They should be hung for treason for that alone.
October 20th, 2007 at 9:50 pm“They should be hung for treason for that alone.”
BADA Fu(king BING
Nylon or Hemp, is the ONLY question to ask these fu(ks
October 21st, 2007 at 12:15 am#20
October 21st, 2007 at 12:16 am“98 soldiers plot”,… more please. Links?
Rep. Diane Watson has stated ON TAPE, on Oct. 14th 2007, Pelosi’s real reasons for not pressing forward on impeachment! She says they (the other democrats in the House) have the evidence to support impeachment and the desire to do so, but that their “leader†has a different plan!
“Now, our leader has looked at this issue, and her strategy is, our speaker, is be sure we take the White House and that we win 60 (more) seatsâ€
At best this is the politicizing of the impeachment proceedings and at worst it is her own desire to remain Speaker of the House! As our soldiers place their very lives on the line in an illegal war, and as this administration beats the drums for another war with Syria or Iran, Pelosi is content to let it all happen, so they can regain control of the House in 2008 and she can retain the Speakership!
Watch for yourself and please get the video out to as many people as possible. Pelosi must be removed!
watch it HERE!
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/ 2007/ 10/ 21/ watson-lays-out-pelosis-reason-to-suppress-impeachment/
October 21st, 2007 at 11:03 amBy most accounts, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey is not the intellectually stunted, duplicitous partisan hatchet man and unabashed Bush loyalist that was his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales. But in his testimony this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, Mukasey followed almost the same script on Bush administration torture policy as Gonzales during his own confirmation hearings in January 2005. As it turns out, both men disavowed the infamous 2002 Bybee memo and brushed aside questions about ongoing torture of detainees as “hypothetical” even as the policies continued unchanged.
For the details, see:
October 21st, 2007 at 1:30 pm“Deja Vu: Mukasey Channels Gonzales’ 2005 Testimony.”