NYT editorial: Hamdan's trial "Guilty as Ordered"

Guilty as Ordered
Published: August 6, 2008

....The military commission of six senior officers (whose names have not been made public) found Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who worked as one of Osama bin Laden’s drivers until 2001, guilty of one count of providing material support for terrorism. The rules of justice on Guantánamo are so stacked against defendants that the only surprise was that Mr. Hamdan was actually acquitted on the more serious count of conspiring (it was unclear with whom) to kill Americans during the invasion of Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001.

The charge on which Mr. Hamdan was convicted seemed logical since he did work as Mr. bin Laden’s driver. But it was still an odd prosecution. Drivers of even the most heinous people are generally not charged with war crimes.

It is impossible, in any case, to judge the evidence against Mr. Hamdan because of the deeply flawed nature of this trial — the blueprint for which was the Military Commissions Act of 2006, one of the worst bits of lawmaking in American history. At these trials, hearsay and secret documents are admissible. Mr. Hamdan’s defense was actually required to began its case in a secret session. The witness was a camp psychologist, presumably called to back Mr. Hamdan’s account of being abused by his interrogators.

Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor in Guantánamo, put the trial in a disturbing light. He testified that he was informed by his superiors that only guilty verdicts would be tolerated. He also said that he was told to bring high-profile cases quickly to help Republicans score a pre-election public relations coup. Colonel Davis gave up his position on Oct. 4, 2007. That, he wrote in The Los Angeles Times in December, was “the day I concluded that full, fair and open trials were not possible under the current system.”...

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We are not arguing that the United States should condone terrorism or those who support it, or that the guilty should not be punished severely. But in a democracy, trials must be governed by fair rules, and judges must be guided by the law and the evidence, not pressure from the government. The military commission system, which falls far short of these standards, is a stain on the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/opinion/07thu1.html?hp

If Salim Hamdan had been guilty as ordered, he would have been convicted on all counts, regardless of the evidence. That is what the Bushies wanted, according to Colonel Morris Davis, whom The New York Times quotes in this editorial.

The military commissions process created by a joint effort of the Bush administration and their collaborators in Congress, is indeed a rigged system, or was designed to be. However, Americans apart from Messrs. Bush and Cheney and their flunkies in the Pentagon and Justice Department (I'm talking to you, Professor Yoo; are you paying attention, Mr. Gonzales? don't go to sleep on me, Mr. Addington) believe in due process and fair trials, especially trained jurists.

I was certain that Salim Hamdan would be found guilty on all charges. The Pentagon even got to hand pick the jury. We in the public would have done none the wiser, for in this misbegotten kangaroo court the evidence could be classified and the proceedings closed. The kangaroos refused to jump on the command of the neoconservatives. I think I owe an apology to Captain Keith Allred, the chief judge, and the jury for displaying a degree of professionalism and acquitting Hamdan on all charges except the one not in dispute: that he was Osama bin Laden's driver. Insofar as that in any kind of crime, it isn't a war crime. Making up reasons out of thin air to invade a sovereign nation is; torture is; and denying combat detainees due process is; but those are bridges to be crossed another day, by a band of rogues who wear western business suits rather than keffiyehs.

The verdict was not what was ordered. It is now Bush, Cheney and the other rogues who once again stand at the bar of world opinion awaiting a harsher verdict than one that could have been handed down against Osama's chauffeur. They are charged with constituting a kangaroo court so lacking in justice that the kangaroos would have none of it.

This would be a good time to revisit the military commission process, and shut it down.