Tribunals Start Up Again: Omar Khadr First Up

You would think with all of the hyperventilating by the left this might be a bigger story. But then again the President has telegraphed he was going to do this for over a month now.

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, June 1 (Reuters) -

The Guantanamo crimes court wheezed back into session on Monday to settle a squabble over which U.S. military lawyers would represent a young Canadian defendant.Omar Khadr, accused of killing a U.S. soldier with a grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan seven years ago, tried to fire his entire Pentagon-appointed defense team, which has been beset by infighting."Right now I can't trust them," Khadr told the military judge. "They've been accusing each other and pointing fingers at each other ... I want to erase all of them."

Nice Family

Obviously there some disagreement on the defense team, as for Omar Khadr he was a young man when he was captured in Afghanistan, why a Canadian teenager would be slumming around with the Taliban is a whole other story. In other news the Economist takes a look at Gitmo :

Mr Obama is being attacked from both right and left. And all the shouting in Washington makes it harder for other governments, especially in Europe, to help America out of its predicament by taking Guantánamo inmates off its hands. Fifty or more are expected soon to be cleared for release who cannot be returned to their home countries for fear of ill-treatment.

It would help if Mr Obama could give a lead by showing that America was ready to resettle some of these people in its own communities. That is proving hard. Although most Americans think terrorist suspects who are found to be innocent by the courts should be released (see table), few places seem ready to accept them. Hectic posts on the internet raise the prospect of wild-eyed jihadists in everyone’s back yard. And at least one bill now in Congress would tie funds for closing Guantánamo to a determination that none of its inmates could settle in America once freed.

Northern Virginia’s small Uighur community may be first to buck this trend, offering homes to up to seven of a group of 17 Chinese Uighurs already set for release but with nowhere to go. That could help Germany accept an informal request from the Obama administration to take nine more of the same group. Most Uighurs are considered more anti-Chinese than anti-Western, and China will be livid wherever they go. (Mr Bush had earlier persuaded Albania to take in a handful, though by all accounts those that went are far from happy there.).

As for the Uighurs, the Obama admin shut that down and explained how nice Gitmo is for them so we can scratch that. As usual the it boils down to the name Guantanmo Bay, having serrialy exxagerated the place the left has created a political bonb for the President. Bassicly he needs a Gitmo that is not located in Gitmo:

Meanwhile, the outlines of Mr Obama’s missing plan are becoming clearer. Critics to his left were heartened to know that some terrorism suspects will be tried on criminal charges in ordinary federal courts. But Mr Obama also intends to revive military commissions for others. He voted against them before, but they will be properly constituted this time, he says, and with more extensive rights for defendants. Last week he acknowledged that the “toughest decision” would be to devise a system of detention to replace Guantánamo, though one properly supervised, he said, by Congress and the courts, for those—including senior al-Qaeda men—who cannot be prosecuted but who pose a clear danger to America.

So typical for Obama to be claiming Cheney is wrong even as he adopts much of the Bush admin's approach. Too bad the country has agreed with Cheney on the issue.