The ENITRE thread? TLDR, thx, k.
But I've followed this issue quite a bit, and I do need to add this insight.
If you go to
This Post on Oasis you'll find a "Military Comm's Act Roundup" I prepared. Notice that the most recent case (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) was the one where the Supreme Court found that the military tribunals were unconstitutional.
So, here's the tension. The military/gov't wants to try these accused terrorists in military tribunals. If those tribunals were allowed to go forward, I suspect many suspects would have been tried already. But, there's a big long and drawn out legal rankle in the US as to whether military tribunals are sufficient.
In particular, the Geneva Convention (note: treaties supercede all US law except the Constitution) requires "regularly constituted tribunals" for trying prisoners for war crimes. Because Congress and the Supreme Court, not the President, has the authority to make courts, these military tribunals were not "regularly constituted tribunals" and did not fit the Geneva Convention, and were therefore not worth spit -- according to the court.
Now, as I said in that article, the Military Comm's Act may have solved this rankle because therein:
Quote:
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in the MCA congress specifically granted the president the power to make the military tribunals. That makes them a "regularly constituted court" under the Geneva Convention, so those tribunals may hold up to legal challenges moving forward.
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So, if the gov't ever gets around to getting its special military tribunals approved, these cases can move forward.
But.... that begs the question... Why do they need a special rump parliament court to try these guys in? Why can't they meet the strictures of a real federal court? Hmmmmmm?