So I am a little confused.

Hobbes

The supreme court rules over the president? Or not?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5131812.stm

In its ruling, the court said military tribunals contravened both the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners, and the US code of military justice.

It also ruled that the tribunals were not expressly authorised by any congressional act, and there was no "sweeping mandate for the president to invoke military commissions whenever he deems them necessary".

However gitmo people were not covered in the ruling, so only new people?

aidan_walsh

Hobbes wrote:

However gitmo people were not covered in the ruling

As far as I make out, the ruling means that none of the people held can be tried by the military. However, the ruling doesn't mandate their release.

Jackie laughlin

The president is subject to the constitution and the Supreme Court interprets the constitution.

Media coverage of this issue has been overly optimistic. The decision refers only to tribunals. Indeed it may prolong detention in Cuba because now there is NO trial procedure.

flogen

What is the problem with regular trials under US law? is it that the majority of them didn't commit their alleged crimes within the US and so cannot be shipped there and tried under its law?

Bush said he wanted to close Gitmo but was waiting for the supreme court to make a decision on the legality of the trials, they now have; surely they had a plan for what to do in this event or are they just going to continue to hold people indefinitely?

gilroyb

It is felt that if the detainees were tried in a normal court their would need to be some evidence. Bush et al are worried that this will leak confidential information, so would prefer the whole procedure was undertaken by the military without the need for such annoyances as evidence.

अधिनायक

flogen wrote:

What is the problem with regular trials under US law? is it that the majority of them didn't commit their alleged crimes within the US and so cannot be shipped there and tried under its law?

Part of the problem is, according to Sen. Arlen Specter, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that arrests of most of the roughly 500 prisoners held there were based on "the flimsiest sort of hearsay".

The judgement only applied to 10 detainees in Guantanamo who took the case. The issue of the legality of dentention was not addressed.

Detainees are classed as enemy combatants cpatured on the field of battle. The battlefield for the war on terrorism has not been defined and may extend to the whole world. On which abstract noun will America next declare war?

bonkey

flogen wrote:

What is the problem with regular trials under US law?

The problem is the Bush Administration doesn't want to allow these. It also doesn't want to allow regular military trials.

In keeping with the "they're neither combatants nor non-combatants" reasoning which was used to claim the GC wasn't violated, a new type of trial had to be invented for this new class of being.....and only then when Bush was told he couldn't not try them.

TBH, all that happened yesterday is that he was told "no, go back and try again" with respect to what type of trial he was willing to grant at all. Given that his starting position was "give them nothing", this is hardly a setback for him.

Bush said he wanted to close Gitmo

I'd be very careful how straightforwardly I interpreted those comments of his.

but was waiting for the supreme court to make a decision on the legality of the trials,

You do realise these trials were for 10 of the 460 people there. The remainder haven't even been charged yet. I seem to recall Hobbes also pointing out recently that some have been determined to be innocent but are not yet released cause there's nowhere to send them!

So if we are to believe Bush, he's waiting to see what type of trial he can give before he charges people with whatever it is they will be tried for!

It may also be the case that he's waiting to see what type of trial he can give before he releases some people without charge

Or, perhaps its the case that his expressed wish to close Gitmo doesn't quite gel with the rest of his actions and it would be more accurate to interpret it like "I wish we could close Gitmo cause that would mean we'd achieved our goals and won, but that ain't gonna happen".

surely they had a plan for what to do in this event or are they just going to continue to hold people indefinitely?

I'll go with option b here and will suggest that the plan in option a would effectively be "stall, to ensure proper trials don't happen"

flogen

So in other words Bush should now either try the prisoners under regular proceedure or release them, but he wont'...

Didn't realise it was just 10 of the 450 though, I personally am getting fatigued by all of this controversy, I'm too burned out to even feel motivated by the bank monitoring story... I guess I'm just no longer surprised.

lostexpectation

I reckon the night before castro dies, cuba should attack and reclaim the bay, do the world a favour sure they've nothing to lose the US will probably try to flip them then anyway