The latest Gitmo "controversy" is Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calling for a couple of Iraqi terrorism suspects arrested in his state of Kentucky to be transferred to Gitmo and tried by military commission.
“A few years ago, we set up military commissions for the specific purpose of trying foreign terrorists,” Mr. McConnell said. “The perfect place for these terrorists is at Guantánamo, to be interrogated. And, if subsequently a trial is deemed appropriate for these foreign terrorists, there are courtrooms down there for the military commission trials. There is really no reason to be mainstreaming these foreign terrorists into a regular U.S. court.”
The two men were indicted by a grand jury in Bowling Green, Ky., and charged with conspiring to send weaponry and money to Al Qaeda in Iraq. In addition, prosecutors say, the fingerprints of one of the men were found on an improvised bomb in Iraq in 2005, and he is also charged with conspiring to kill an American abroad. Both men entered the United States on refugee status in 2009.
A few years ago, there wasn't a single Republican who objected to the Bush administration's discretion to try terrorists in whatever venue they chose. Only when Obama became president did the idea of trying foreign terrorism suspects apprehended on American soil even become "controversial," and it shouldn't be, because with his revival of the military commissions this isn't even a departure from the standard policy of the previous administration. Attorney General Eric Holder pointed out as much in a speech before the American Constitution Society:
Noting that no terrorism suspect arrested on United States soil had been tried by a military commission under either the Bush or the Obama administration, Mr. Holder said hundreds of such defendants had instead been successfully prosecuted in civilian courts. In none of those cases, he said, did a defendant escaped custody or did one of the judicial districts involved suffer retaliatory attacks.
There's a very basic logic problem with McConnell's position. In the U.S., regardless of citizenship, when you're accused of a crime, you're innocent until proven guilty. His position, that the suspects in this case are enemy combatants who should go to Gitmo and be tried by military commission, assumes that the suspects in question are already guilty.
