Rep. Nadler and Attorney David Frakt on Obama’s Three-Tier Justice System For Gitmo

Rep. Nadler and Attorney David Frakt on Obama’s Three-Tier Justice System For Gitmo
By Andy Worthington | The Public Record

In the wake of Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement that five Guantánamo prisoners — including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — will face federal court trials in New York, and five others will face trials by Military Commission, much of the media has been consumed with the whining of opportunistic right-wing politicians, who persist in maintaining the same hysterical level of unfounded fearmongering that has skewed the debate on Guantánamo for most of the year.

As a result, far too little attention has been paid to the inadequacy of the Military Commissions as a venue for trying crimes related to terrorism, although there have been some notable exceptions. Both Glenn Greenwald and myself (in an article entitled, “The Logic of the 9/11 Trials, The Madness of the Military Commissions”) have written about it, and Lt. Col. David Frakt, who served as the military defense attorney for the released Afghan prisoner Mohammed Jawad, and for Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, who was convicted in a one-sided show trial last November, delivered a withering analysis of the Commissions’ failings in an email exchange with Marcy Wheeler on Firedoglake, and has also spoken to Truthout about his concerns. In an email to Marcy Wheeler, he explained:

I reject the government’s claim that the nature of the crime determines the forum (federal court or military commission). I believe it is largely political considerations that are the basis for these determinations. Basically, if there is a US Attorney who wants to try the case and they think they can prove it, they get priority and it goes to federal court. Clearly, there weren’t any federal prosecutors who wanted to touch the [Omar] Khadr case with a ten-foot pole. Who wants to be the first person to try a 15-year old child soldier as a war criminal in history? (Answer — the prosecutors at OMC [the Office of Military Commissions]). Read more.