Can the military court handle the 9/11 defendants?

[soulflower]

Remember people said the Federal Court system couldn't handle the 9/11 trials? Looks like the military tribunal hearings got off to a bad start:

According to news reports on Saturday, the lead defendant, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed , removed the headphones intended to provide Arabic-English translations of the judge’s questions. The other defendants did the same, forcing the judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl , to recess briefly. The hearing resumed after an interpreter began providing a translation that could be heard by the whole court.

But news reports depict a day filled with other interruptions. A co-defendant, Walid bin Attash , was strapped to a chair after refusing to come to court voluntarily. He was freed from the chair after pledging to behave inside the courtroom.

At one point, another detainee, Ramzi bin al-Shibh , rose suddenly, then knelt on the floor of the courtroom to pray. A team of guards in camouflage uniforms watched closely, but did not intervene.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/us...t.html?_r=1&hp

[RHB]

What is a non military court going to do, that a military cannot. If these guys refuse to cooperate, treat them accordingly.

[SalisburySage]

Seems like they are doing okay so far.

[SomeIdiot]

I don't see why the military has any business trying criminal acts committed by civilians against civilians. All this "war" stuff has always struck me as bizarre paranoia. Terrorism within the borders of the United States is and always has been a law enforcement problem.

[Contumacious]

Can the military court handle the 9/11 defendants?

No.

But that is their purpose. Provide a Moscow Show Trial then execute.

.

[Byng]

I don't see why the military has any business trying criminal acts committed by civilians against civilians. All this "war" stuff has always struck me as bizarre paranoia. Terrorism within the borders of the United States is and always has been a law enforcement problem.

Exactly!

[Contumacious]

Exactly!

True Conservatives Condemn Military Tribunals for Terrorists

by Rick Ungar

Recently by Andrew P. Napolitano: Justice Alito Was Right

When is a conservative not a conservative?

When they do a 180 degree turn away from their own ideology in order to curry populist political favor.

As the White House engages in a war of words with the likes of Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo), Rep. Peter King (R-NY) and Rep. John Hoekstra (R-Mich.) — each a self-professed, committed ultra-conservative — over the Mirandizing of the Christmas Day bomber and the failure to place him into the military justice system as a way of avoiding rights due him in the Article III courts, none of these players seem to realize they have completely switched ideological sides.

Just ask Fox News Commentator and long-time conservative judicial and legal voice, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano.

According to Judge Napolitano, an avowed disciple of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, the very concept of a military tribunal for defendants of a “war on terror” is a blatant disregard of the U.S. Constitution.


The Judge's argument is simple —

It's a violation of the Constitution to use the panels without a declaration of war — and just calling it a “war” on terror doesn't count.
~ Via Los Angeles Times

Napolitano argues that no president has yet to appear before Congress to ask for a Declaration of War — nor has Congress ever made such as declaration. Therefore, there can simply be no Constitutional justification to create military tribunals to try alleged enemy combatants as they are enemy combatants in a war that Congress has never declared.

This is not simply the opinion of one conservative."

.