So at this point, don't you think its a little premature to criticize Obama on this? (not like you don't have plenty of other things to get him on)
GW says lib lawyers and the supreme court are doing this. So then Obama or BUSH may not have any choice because they could be forced to release him.
Oz you are misquoting me. I said that Bush didn't do it because of lib lawyers and the Supreme Court. Obama CAN do it and chose NOT to do it and that's why there is such widespread outrage.
When Bush opened Guantanamo there was absolutely no indication that any of the non-enemy combatants would be subject to the constitutional rights afforded Americans. Then the Supreme Court muddied the waters and complicated things exponentially by declaring Guantanamo as American soil. This effectively entitled everyone at Guantanamo to a laundry list of rights and legal entitlements they normally would not have received.
Once clarifications were made detainees were suddenly given their own lawyers, habeas rights and everything else under the sun. OK- Once that occurred, the government tried to separate the detainees into two distinct groups; those that were going to be tried in civilian court and those who were going to be tried before military commissions. Of course, high value detainees were also separated from low value detainees based on the potential intel that could be extracted. Next, the lib lawyers representing the detainees sued in Supreme Court, challenging the procedural due process afforded non-enemy combatants being tried before military commissions. So, the government made certain alterations to the military commission’s process. Now, once these changes were made ( And bare in mind the Supreme Court never explicitly decided what changes were necessary to satisfy the procedural due process rights of the detainees), a few military trials began.
This did not occur until Bush’s second term was almost over- (2006, 2007). Obviously the administration tested the waters with the new military commissions process by prosecuting low level detainees—ie the guy who claimed he was only Osama’s driver.
Trying KSM before a military tribunal was neither feasible nor possible during Bush’s administration.