No

by William Cobbs

Created on: August 13, 2008

The War Crimes trials should not be held at Guantanamo nor anywhere else in the jurisdiction of the United States.
We have an international tribunal in the Hague and are a member of it as are all of the civilized nations in the world. It is presently trying a war criminal from Bosnia...one may follow that trial to get an idea of how the international tribunal works.

But there are extremely important reasons why MILITARY courts should not try war criminals...note the usage "war criminals" and not the buzz word, terrorists.

America has let the United States government with careful contrived legislation give much too much freedom to military courts. When one analyses the motives behind this, they reflect a wanting of the death penalty for terrorists which does not exist in the International Court of the Hague, life imprisonment instead. But seekers of blood have contrived a new kind of court to try to have a capital punishment available.

Let us look at the usual and previous status of the military laws and courts:
First, to be tried, a culprit has to be in the American services and having broken its (military) laws, is subject to Courts Martial and whatever sentence is passed, including the death penalty.

The usual military court consists of a board of officers, usually of major or above, but sometimes not...in war time, a courts martial can be convened within a company in the field and sentence carried out there...but modern usage has even there required the approval of the Commanding General.

Once the sentence has been confirmed, and in particular in capital or death penalty cases, the sentence passes through chain of command AUTOMATICALLY,. The final court appeal is the Court of Appeals of Uniform Justice, seated in Washington, D.C. and having three judges and three commissioners. One judge is the Chief Judge, and he can act as tie-breaker, or simply re-hear any case where there is substntial complaint. The only relief above it, the court, is pardon by the President,rarely used.

American law uses a great deal of precedent, or reference to previously conducted trials.
There is only precedent WITHIN the Uniform Code Of Military Justice that the military may look for reasons to try, or confirm a sentence, or to carry-out a confirmed sentence.

In other words, any trial taking place in Guantanamo for an American soldier would be correct, and its outcome or sentence would then be pased up the chain of command, eventually reaching the three judges and three commissioners of the U.S. Court of Military Appeals.
There attornies, chose or assigned, argue the appeals in that court.

It would seem that the United States would have been very pleased to have the Court at The Hague take over the trial of some 200 'war criminals' the proper word for 'terrorist'

The outcome of the FIRST trial was triumph for law in spite of the openly unfair system that had been set-up. The defense attorney accurately explained to the court that being the driver for a true war criminal does not make one a war criminal...we did not in World War II at the properly constituted War Criminals Trial at Nuremberg try Hitler's chauffeur. As a matter of fact, he, young and blond and personable, wrote a book and appeared in a film about being the monster's driver. Many precedents of this type can be seen in history.

Now with that background, should the trials, at the Hague OR at Guantanamo be held while the war continues, the answer is a large "NO". It is imposible in the vindictiveness and heat of a war that an enemy combatant should be tried with respect to normal American tenets of law...and the act of CREATING an especially adapted court JUST for one set of possible miscreants is certainly not constitutional or in step with America.

Some ill-informed and unlettered persons who despise the culture and ways of our enemies among the Islamites see the present Guantanamo situation as a way to punish the mass of followers when we know full well that in some cases, and certainly in the case of Osama Ben Ladens driver, they did not know at all about the preparation and execution of the attack on New York by high-jacked plane.

Another small point:

We don't OWN Guantanamo Bay and mainland: we LEASED it on a "permanent lease" basis from the predecessor of Castro and his minions, Batista. A point of law come up: can we really have a trial in a foreign land, and give a foreign people a fair break in their defense? This writer thinks not.

There is no doubt whatsoever that we should KEEP Guantanomo as our bastion Naval Base to oversee the plottings of Raoul Castro and his followers and eventual replacements...it is to our advantage to have sixty miles from Havana a force that could quickly overcome any overt miltary acts by Cuba.
(Truthfully, CUBA seems to be decommunizing at present..brother Raoul sees the writing on the wall for Marx and Engels).

Summing up, NO, we should not use GUANTANAMO as a trial base...we should carefully look at what we have learned( without torture!) in the years since 911 about these people, and if any connection with the ACT at 911, each one found so at once to the Hague;others, probably the majority, should be returned to not neccesarily Afghanistan, but to whereever the least Al Quaeda activity is in a Moslem country.

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