A Stitch in Haste

The White House quietly issued an Executive Order yesterday formally creating the kangaroo courts military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay that Congress authorized under the Military Commissions Act (i.e., the same act that unconstitutionally suspends habeas corpus) after the Supreme Court held in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that legislative authorization was indeed required.

Remember: No alien detainee has a right to a hearing before these tribunals; the government decides who will appear before them. (The tribunals do not apply to American citizens.) And the government will therefore only hold hearings for those detainees whom they can conclusively prove are in fact guilty -- the "slam dunks," to borrow a phrase. Those for whom the evidence is weaker (i.e., precisely those more likely to be innocent) will of course be denied hearings, and will rot in Gitmo -- very possibly for the rest of their lives.

Madness. Sheer madness.

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Speaking of rotting in Gitmo:

Australia was refused permission to send an independent psychiatrist to Guantánamo Bay to assess the lone Australian prisoner at the U.S. detention camp in Cuba, a senior Foreign Department official said Thursday.
...
Australia's embassy in Washington wrote to the Pentagon on Dec. 5 to request an independent psychiatric assessment of David Hicks on behalf of his lawyers and family. Failing that, Australia wanted an assessment by Guantánamo medical staff.

Hicks, a former kangaroo skinner who converted to Islam and is accused of fighting for the Taliban, has been held at Guantánamo for five years and his attorneys and family say he may have developed mental illness during his extended incarceration.
...
Hicks is one of three high-profile prisoners at Guantánamo who were selected this month to become the first suspects to be tried by military commissions for alleged terrorist crimes.

Last time I checked, Australia was a "trusted ally" in the War on Terror. Australia is also part of the "coalition" with armed forces in Iraq; two Australian soldiers have died in Iraq. The Australian government deserves better than a chiding finger-wag from the United States. Hopefully they won't hold a grudge the next time we need a favor, let alone some international justice, from them.

"Congress expresses its appreciation to the Government and people of Australia for the support given to the United States in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 [and] pays tribute to the relationship between the United States and Australia and looks forward to the continued growth and development of all aspects of the relationship[.]"
--H.Con.Res. 217 (107th Congress, October 16, 2001)