The Hamdan conviction

August 7, 6:18 PMProgressive Politics ExaminerJay McDonough

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Nothing to be proud of here.  After seven years of manipulating the justice system to finally find some court that is guaranteed to convict Salim Hamdan, the best the Justice Department can do is to convict this fourth grade dropout for "material support" of terrorism.  Charged with war crimes, the Government ended up with a conviction for charges Hamdan admitted to when captured; he was Osama bin Laden's driver.

"I would be very surprised if any of this conviction stands at the end of the day," says Scott Horton, a law professor specializing in human rights at Columbia University. "He was convicted of things that are not war crimes by a tribunal that has the power only to prosecute war crimes."

Indeed, the Hamdan verdict points up, more than anything else, one of the central mistakes of the Bush administration after 9/11: sheer overreaching. Was this really the best the administration could do—a driver—in the first test run of its much-batted-about tribunal system, nearly seven years after the terror attacks themselves? By arrogantly deciding that the president had the right to define and pursue the "war on terror" any way he liked, and that he could define anyone he liked as an "unlawful combatant"—then expanding its prisoner population way beyond the true Al Qaeda culprits to include everyone rounded up in Afghanistan and then Iraq—the administration ensured itself a legal and moral quagmire.  (Link)

This was the big, lead off case to showcase the fancy new military tribunal system set up to circumvent normal justice.  An all military jury, relaxed rules of evidence, allowance of hearsay testimony, and even allowing the admission (at the Judge's discretion) of testimony gained through the use of torture.  And still the prosecutors couldn't get a conspiracy conviction.

Anyone willing to bet what will happen if the Bush Administration ever gets around to pulling in some al Qaeda heavyweights into trial?  Is the evidence so tainted by testimony gained only by the use of illegal torture that even military tribunals will be unable to convict?

And the icing on the cake; Hamdan was sentenced today to 66 months in jail.  The Justice Department prosecutors asked he be sentenced to at least 30 years, if not life imprisonment.  As Hamdan has already spent 5 years in military prisons, he is technically be eligible for release in 6 MONTHS! 

Yeah, this Bush Administration, they're real tough on terror.