Obama promised to reject the Bush 2006 Military Commissions Act, in particular its underlying legal structure. He did not promise to reject military commissions.
President Barack Obama didn’t reverse himself on military commissions.
He was clear before the campaign that he’d favor them under different rules. On Jan. 22, a senior administration official briefed reporters that keeping the military panels alive with new rules was a real possibility. Obama’s campaign trail rhetoric was a bit murky, probably deliberately so, but if reporters didn’t nail him down is that Obama’s fault? Did anyone ask him if he was ruling out commissions?
The president’s statement included a justification for the use of a revamped military commissions system. “In 2006, I voted in favor of the use of military commissions,” it read. “But I objected strongly to the Military Commissions Act that was drafted by the Bush administration and passed by Congress, because it failed to establish a legitimate legal framework and undermined our capability to ensure swift and certain justice against those detainees that we were holding at the time.”
The Supreme Court struck down part of the Military Commissions Act in June, ruling that foreign detainees at Guantanamo Bay had the right to challenge their detention in federal courts.
The changes announced today include a ban on using statements obtained from detainees through “cruel, inhuman and degrading interrogation methods”; limitations on the use of hearsay; greater latitude for the accused in choosing their lawyer; and basic protections for people who refuse to testify. Under the new rules, military commission judges would be able to establish the jurisdiction of their own courts.
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Filed under: False!, Justice, Military, National Security
