Bush 2.0: Obama To Continue Military Tribunals

President Barack Obama continued his replication of the Bush policies today with the disclosure that he will now restart the controversial Bush tribunal system — now to be called the Obama tribunal system. This follows Obama’s adoption of an even more extreme theory of executive privilege in court, the reversal of the decision to comply with a court order and turn over abuse photographs, the continuing effort to extinguish dozens of public interest lawsuits on privacy violations, and the proposed adoption of the Bush policy of holding detainees indefinitely without trial, here. In the meantime, he and Attorney General Eric Holder continue to block the appointment of a special prosecutor despite mounting evidence of war crimes committed by the prior administration. I will be discussing these recent developments tonight on Countdown.

What is astonishing is how muted the response from democrats and liberals has been despite the fact that Obama has now adopted the very same policies that made George Bush an international pariah. It is clear that Obama has determined that these men stood a chance of being released if they were given full legal protections and procedures. Thus, he has discovered the value of extrajudicial punishment with indefinite detentions and tribunals. The tribunal system is run on rules written by the Bush Administration to ensure convictions. It has even fewer protections than allowed in the military system and has been widely ridiculed, even by some conservatives, as Kangaroo trial system. While Obama will reportedly alter the rules, the principled position would be reject the notion of special justice for certain defendants and to rely on our legal system to mete out blind justice.

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