«What hasn't changed in all these six years is that not one detainee has been convicted at a trial before the military tribunals that operate at Guantanamo. The administration still asserts, as it always has, that the detainees are treated "humanely," and yet the evidence of torture and abuse at Guantanamo has become unequivocal. The administration also still claims that the detainees at Guantanamo have rights—great heaping armloads of unprecedented rights. Except, six years later, it's clear (PDF) that the legal proceedings set up at Gitmo in the wake of Rasul, the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals (PDF), mostly give prisoners the "right" to be tried by a judge who answers to the military; the "right" to be tried with evidence obtained by torture; the "right" to be presumed a terrorist from the outset; the "right" to be tried without a lawyer present; and the "right" to be tried with evidence that's sloppy, inaccurate, and classified.
If those are rights, ladle me up some of them wrongs.»
(...)
«Emily Bazelon argued forcefully yesterday that the government's claim that it is giving Guantanamo detainees more rights than anyone like them has ever received is both historically and constitutionally bizarre. It may sound good rhetorically, but it forces the administration to argue—as Clement does today—that the detainees have terrific procedures—as good as a habeas proceeding! Better, even!—and that the detainees should be grateful for them.
But I just couldn't count five votes today for the proposition that the kangaroo tribunals are better than the alternatives, or even that they are any good at all. After six years, zero trials, multiple suicide attempts, and myriad resignations, even the claim that serfs on the Isle of Jersey in 1597 would have been delighted with the CSRTs sounds a false note. The one unifying theme today may be that every justice present longs for the good old days of the 14th century. The conservatives because life was better then. And the liberals because even the Middle Ages look better than what the administration is doing now.»
