Guantánamo trials

Just in case anyone thought that these trials were going to go really smoothly and in line with the norms of American justice:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/17/guantanamo-trial-microphone-revelations


Sounds like the 'unnamed intelligence agency' maybe our old friends in the CIA. If so they are pretty much romping all over this supposedly domestic trial process with wild abandon. The base commander of Guantánamo and even the judge at the trial are all considered beneath the notice of this unnamed intelligence agency. Hard to imagine that any convictions that come out of this process can be considered legitimate.

Clearly the answer is to start hauling in people who should know who cut the audio feed to the courtroom and throwing them in jail for contempt when they refuse to disclose.

I think the question is who would know, exactly. Taking most of that at face value, the CIA is running espionage against our own military. The head of the CIA should absolutely be hauled in to answer and shut this shit down. But, you know, like that would happen.

I mean, really we should probably free everyone there no questions asked because we've completely wrecked the ability for anyone to get a fair trial. But politically, this would also be suicide for any party that supported it because there's still a dumb portion of the country who thinks if they're in prison they're obviously bad guys.

It's nice to see that at least some Americans still care, though this is a British journalist speaking:

History repeats itself!

Also, someone needs to remake this game.

Seriously. If they would just say, "listen, we were angry, so we decided, fuck due process, fuck the rule of law, we'll do what we like" that would simplify things a whole lot. At this point, due process has been so utterly and repeatedly transgressed that the result can only be a show trial, at best.

I loved those games. Why do you link me to a place where I can download $213 worth of books for just $40... I now feel compelled to buy. And the 2300AD and then Dark Conspiracy.

Show trials are hypocritical and messy, but at least they demonstrate what we claim to care about, and give us something specific to object to. In the absence of a show trial, we'd never have learned about the listening devices. The messiness is a feature, not a bug, and even if these people will never get a fair trial, exposing abuses makes it possible to push for fair trials in the future.

Dishonesty and hypocrisy aren't half as bad as the "shoot them in the head and be done with it" approach, which is what we'd get if this unnamed agency didn't have to maintain its supposed distance.

Edit: Looking back at your post, I think I took what may have been exasperated sarcasm too seriously. But there are enough people who seriously say "fuck due process, I just give up" that I thought I should respond.

I basically agree with you, FerdieLance. There's a good essay by Terry Eagleton (I think? Read it some time ago now) where he argues that all law evolved from situations where someone in an authoritarian state codified what they were allowed to do (which may have included everything and anything they wanted) and thereby, unwittingly, limited the powers of their successors. The US has a long history of doing terrible things totally out of keeping with its apparent democratic and idealistic character, and it can do these things because basically nobody can challenge their power. Might can't make right but it can make a decent simulacrum of it. Yet, those abuses of power are not the whole story, and the story overall is a positive one. Situations like this one, though, do really set me off for some reason. I think... maybe it's the sense that so much careful work, so many hard-fought incremental improvements in the system of justice, can apparently be unravelled so far and so quickly by A Few Bad Men.