Obama Wants Trials for Gitmo Detainees

Of course, Barack Obama wants to put the Guantanamo Bay detainees on trial and release others.

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President-elect Obama's advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a "sad chapter in American history" and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to handle the detainees. But he has offered few details on what he planned to do once the facility is closed.

Under plans being put together in Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

A third group of detainees _ the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information _ might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks. Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans aren't final.

The move would be a sharp deviation from the Bush administration, which established military tribunals to prosecute detainees at the Navy base in Cuba and strongly opposes bringing prisoners to the United States. Obama's Republican challenger, John McCain, had also pledged to close Guantanamo. But McCain opposed criminal trials, saying the Bush administration's tribunals should continue on U.S. soil.

Obama's advisers aren't quietly crafting this proposal at all. If it's news, it's not quiet.

What's with creating a "new court"? On what authority? Executive order?

It's no surprise that this is the approach the Obama administration would take when it comes to the War on Terror.

Barack Obama has said Osama bin Laden deserves a trial.

In July 2007, Obama was asked about bin Laden and the death penalty.

Obama, who has expressed reservations about capital punishment but does not oppose it, said he would support the death penalty for Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The first thing I'd support is his capture, which is something this administration has proved incapable of achieving," Obama said. "I would then, as president, order a trial that observed international standards of due process. At that point, do I think that somebody who killed 3,000 Americans qualifies as someone who has perpetrated heinous crimes, and would qualify for the death penalty. Then yes."

Jim Geraghty comments:

Mm. Yes, important to have that trial. Perhaps we might have caught the wrong Osama bin Laden.

By the way, Zacarias Moussaoui - the man who mocked the tears of 9/11 victims who testified against him, who would have been piloting one of the hijacked planes on 9/11 - was spared the death penalty because one anonymous juror lied during the jury selection process when he or she declared that he had no moral objections to the death penalty. They split 11 to 1, but the holdout refused to identify himself or explain his vote.

So the moment you put a case before a jury, you run the risk that some lying holier-than-thou SOB is going to impose his morality on the rest of the country in defiance of the law. So it is possible that if captured and tried, Osama bin Laden would be spared the death penalty.

Obama - Weak on terror.