This is pretty disturbing. In a meeting with the families of the victims of terrorist attacks, Obama suggested that he might develop a new military commissions system to try Gitmo detainees:
Participants also made clear their fears about detainees being brought to the United States and into a court system that afforded them full constitutional privileges. Obama did not rule anything out, but said he also had his concerns, and "he did open the door that he might do modified military commissions" instead, Lippold said.
There's no reason to prevent suspected terrorists to defend themselves in open court. The military commissions have essentially been discredited as a venue because of the perception that they were created to retroactively ensure convictions. As Lt. Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, the prosecutor in the Mohammed Jawad case wrote in his declaration of support for Jawad's petition for habeas corpus:
The chaotic state of the evidence, overly broad and unnecessary restrictions imposed under the guise of national security, and the absence of any systematic, reliable method of preserving and cataloguing evidence, all of which have plagued the Tribunals and Commissions since their inception in 2002 and 2006, make it impossible for anyone involved (the prosecutors) or caught up (the detainees) in the Commissions to harbor even the remotest hope that justice is an achievable goal.Obama was once similarly critical of the commissions. He voted against the Military Commissions Act, and he said while campaigning that:
These trials will need to be above reproach...These trials are too important to be held in a flawed military commission system that has failed to convict anyone of a terrorist act since the 9/11 attacks and that has been embroiled in legal challenges.
Quite right. It's important not just that we imprison terrorists, but that we do so in a manner that eliminates doubts about their innocence or the process under which they were tried. The more we learn about the commissions, the more it becomes clear that they are an inadequate solution to this problem, "modified" or otherwise.
Obama is blessed as a politician with the ability to tell different audiences what they want to hear and sound convincing. He also likes to make those he disagrees with feel as though they are being listened to, and their concerns are being taken seriously. The notion that he is "open" to military commissions doesn't mean that is the system he will ultimately decide on for prosecuting detainees. But if he did, it would certainly be a change from the Obama people thought they were voting for.
