Via Spencer Ackerman, it seems that Sen. Lindsey Graham just can't deal with the idea of terrorists being sentenced to life in prison in civilian court:
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham confirmed Monday he is working with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to break the logjam on closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and bringing the prisoners to trial.
The South Carolina senator said that in a series of meetings and phone calls over the last “several weeks,” he has pressed to establish a new national security court that would keep most Guantanamo detainees out of the federal courthouse. He expressed confidence that he could strike a deal to extend some measure of habeas corpus rights to prisoners detained on terrorism charges and to draft a “law of war” statute that ensures no one can be detained on the whim of the executive branch without oversight or judicial recourse.
Graham's proposal to create an alternate legal system exclusively for Muslims accused of terrorism is flat-out absurd coming in the aftermath of the conviction of Najibullah Zazi, who is now facing a life term as a result of a plea deal. The last guy who got a plea deal in one of Graham's precious military commissions walked out nine months later.
The Supreme Court declared the old military commissions unconstitutional, and the new ones may ultimately face the same fate. So rather than utilize the system we have that works, Graham wants to propose an entirely new "national security court" that won't work, because it would be "bipartisan":
But a solution has got to be bipartisan. There's no way the Democratic Party is going to walk off a political cliff here without Republican support, nor should they.
The Obama administration should not try to shirk its constitutional obligations out of bipartisan comity. This "national security court" would be hit with a court challenge before it saw a single case, and if the military commissions are any indication, that challenge could stall the implementation of this travesty for years. It's almost like Graham would prefer that suspected terrorists not get trials at all.
What boggles my mind is that there's nothing "conservative" about this. This is an extraordinarily radical plan, and the only reason it isn't seen that way is because of a Beltway fetish for executive power that excuses anything done in the name of national security.
-- A. Serwer
