From: Ad 

If you invade a country you will always find difficulties wrt making out
those fighting the invasion are not combatants but criminals.

The SS took that view & many were hung as a result.

Adam

Rich Gauszka wrote:
> Wonder if Bush needs a chauffeur?
>
> http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/06/04/ap3787236.html
>
> Military judges dismissed charges Monday against a Guantanamo detainee
> accused of chauffeuring Osama bin Laden and another who allegedly killed
> a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, throwing up roadblocks to the Bush
> administration's attempt to try terror suspects in military courts.
>
> In back-to-back arraignments for Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen and
> Canadian Omar Khadr the U.S. military's cases against the alleged
> al-Qaida figures dissolved because, the two judges said, the government
> had failed to establish jurisdiction.
>
> They were the only two of the roughly 380 prisoners at Guantanamo
> charged with crimes, and the rulings stand to complicate efforts by the
> United States to try other suspected al-Qaida and Taliban figures in
> military courts.
>
> Hamdan's military judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, said the detainee is
> "not subject to this commission" under legislation passed by Congress
> and signed by President Bush last year. Hamdan is accused of
> chauffeuring bin Laden's and being the al-Qaida chief's bodyguard.
>
> Defense attorneys argued that the new Military Commissions Act, written
> to establish military trials after the U.S. Supreme Court last year
> rejected the previous system, is full of problems.
>
> The judges agreed that there was one problem they could not resolve -
> the new legislation says only "unlawful enemy combatants" can be tried
> by the military trials, known as commissions. But Khadr and Hamdan had
> previously been identified by military panels only as enemy combatants,
> lacking the critical "unlawful" designation.
>
> The surprise decisions do not spell freedom for the detainees, who are
> imprisoned here along with about 380 other men suspected of links to
> al-Qaida and the Taliban.
>
> Khadr was 15 when he was captured after a firefight in Afghanistan in
> 2002 in which he allegedly killed a U.S. soldier and was wounded
> himself. He is now 20.
>
> Khadr, appearing in the courtroom with a beard and wearing an
> olive-green prison uniform, seemed uninterested when the judge, Army
> Col. Peter Brownback, threw out the case. Khadr focused on his own image
> on a computer screen that showed a live TV broadcast of the proceedings.
>
> The chief of military defense attorneys at Guantanamo Bay, Marine Col.
> Dwight Sullivan, said the dismissal of the case against Khadr could
> spell the end of the war-crimes trial system hurriedly set up last year
> by Congress and Bush after the Supreme Court threw out the previous system.
>
> But legal experts said Brownback apparently left open the door for a
> retrial for Khadr, and that the Defense Department can possibly fix the
> jurisdictional problem by holding new "combat status review tribunals"
> for any detainee headed to trial.
>
> Sullivan said the dismissal has "huge" impact because none of the
> detainees held at this isolated military base in southeast Cuba has been
> found to be an "unlawful" enemy combatant.
>
> "It is not just a technicality; it's the latest demonstration that this
> newest system just does not work," Sullivan told journalists. "It is a
> system of justice that does not comport with American values."
>
> The Military Commissions Act specifically says that only those
> classified as "unlawful" enemy combatants can face war trials here,
> Brownback noted.
>
> The distinction is important because if they were "lawful," they would
> be entitled to prisoner of war status, which under the Geneva
> Conventions would entitle them to the same treatment under established
> military law that U.S. soldiers would get.
>
> A Pentagon spokesman said the issue was little more than semantics.
>
> Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon told The Associated Press said the entire
> Guantanamo system was set up to deal with people who act as "unlawful
> enemy combatants," operating outside any internationally recognized
> military, without uniforms, military ranks or other things that make
> them party to the Geneva Conventions.
>
> "It is our belief that the concept was implicit that all the Guantanamo
> detainees who were designated as 'enemy combatants' ... were in fact
> unlawful," Gordon said.
>
> Sullivan said that reclassifying detainees as "unlawful,"
will require a
> time-consuming overhaul of the whole system. But Gregory McNeal, a law
> professor at Pennsylvania State University, said nothing prevents the
> Defense Department from reconvening hearings for detainees headed to
> trial and declaring them to be "unlawful" combatants.
>
> Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said a
> retrial is possible because Brownback dismissed the case without prejudice.
>
> Prosecuting attorneys in both cases indicated they would appeal the
> dismissals. But the court designated to hear the appeals - known as the
> court of military commissions review - doesn't even exist yet, Sullivan
> noted.
>
> At the Khadr family home in Toronto, Khadr's sister Zaynab said she
> hoped the ruling would lead to his release.
>
> "It seems like good news. I guess someone is starting to actually look
> at the charges and at him as a person rather than just the fact he's
> allegedly the enemy of the United States," the 27-year-old said in a
> telephone interview.
>
> U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, said he plans to hold
> hearings on the Military Commissions Act, which he said is "riddled with
> problems and created a process that operates outside the rule of law -
> it has crippled our ability to deal with the real criminals still being
> held at Guantanamo."
>
> The only other detainee charged under the new system, Australian David
> Hicks, pleaded guilty in March to providing material support to al-Qaida
> and is serving a nine-month sentence in Australia. Sullivan said the
> dismissal of the Khadr case raised questions about the legitimacy of
> Hicks' conviction.
>
> Brownback ruled only minutes into Khadr's arraignment on charges of
> murder in violation of the law of war, attempted murder in violation of
> the law of war, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and
> spying.
>
> "The charges are dismissed without prejudice," Brownback pronounced.
>
> A prosecutor, Army Capt. Keith Petty, said he had been prepared to show
> Khadr was an unlawful combatant because he fought for al-Qaida, and
> videotapes showed Khadr making and planting explosives targeting
> American soldiers.
>
> The U.S. military has hoped to accelerate its prosecutions of Guantanamo
> detainees, with the Pentagon saying it expects to eventually charge
> about 80 of the 380 prisoners held at this isolated base. Now, delays
> seem likely.
>
> The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hamdan last June when it threw out
> the previous military tribunal system, set up in the wake of the Sept.
> 11, 2001, attacks. Congress quickly responded with new guidelines for
> war-crimes trials that Bush signed into law.
>
> Hamdan was charged with conspiracy for his alleged membership in
> al-Qaida, his purported role in plotting to attack civilians and
> civilian targets, and material support for terrorism - he is accused of
> transporting at least one SA-7 surface-to-air missile to shoot down U.S.
> and coalition military aircraft in Afghanistan in November 2001.
>
> __
>

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