Military judges just say no
Apparently, military judges love terrorists. They want to have like ten million of their babies. At least, that's how the Bush administration and its lapdogs will spin the decisions yesterday - by two different military judges overseeing two different cases - to halt two military trials because the defendants weren't previously determined to be "unlawful enemy combatants". They were both declared "enemy combatants", but under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, defendants must be declared unlawful, as required by international law, to be tried on war crimes in the military commissions.
So that makes it well over 5 years since the first detainees were brought to Guantanamo, with still not one trial completed. The Bush administration's attempts to circumvent the rule of law and set up a separate legal system for terrorists has failed. That should be very embarassing to the Bush administration. Once again, it demonstrates how bad at government, foriegn policy, and war Republicans actually are.
And Congress isn't helping things, specifically with the dumber than dumb Military Commissions Act of 2006. Congress - including lots of Democrats - thought Bush wasn't screwing this up enough, so they decided to help him along with this terrible bill. The bill sets up military courts that are intended to resemble conventional courts. But the military courts resemble conventional courts the way Velveeta resembles real cheese: Not very well. And they both leave a bad taste in your mouth.
Another win for the rule of law, but not a win, as the Bushies will argue, for the terrorists. I'm not taking bets, though, on whether or not we'll see a successfully prosecuted case in one of these courts before Bush is pushed out of office.
