Prosecution of Terrorists Dealt Blow

The Bush Administration was dealt a serious blow by a military judge who threw out the terrorism related charges against Omar Khadr. This will set back an attempt by Bush to have the detainees tried in military courts.

The chief of military defense attorneys at Guantanamo Bay, Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, said the ruling could spell the end of the war-crimes trial system set up last year by Congress and President Bush after the Supreme Court threw out the previous system. The ruling immediately raised questions about whether the U.S. will have to further revise procedures for prosecuting prisoners, leading to major delays.

Khadr is a Canadian who was captured at the age of 15 and charged with killing an American soldier in Afghanistan. He is now 20 and will remain in custody in Guantanamo with 380 other detainees.

The judge, Army Col. Peter Brownback, said he had no choice but to throw out the Khadr case because he had been classified as an "enemy combatant" by a military panel years earlier—and not as an "alien unlawful enemy combatant."

The Military Commissions Act, signed by Bush last year, says only those classified as "unlawful" enemy combatants can face war trials here, Brownback noted during the arraignment in a hilltop courtroom.

The Military Commissions Act signed by Bush said that only detainees classified as "unlawful" enemy combatants can be tried at Guantanamo and all of the detainees are only classified as "enemy" combatants.

"It is not just a technicality; it's the latest demonstration that this newest system just does not work," Sullivan told journalists. "It is a system of justice that does not comport with American values."

This seems to be what happens when bad policy becomes bad law. These people at Guantanamo are not innocent victims and if they are let go they will certainly go back to killing Americans.

This is just continuing evidence of the total incompetence of the Bush Administration.