NPR’s Serial series had a great season about Gitmo. The last two episodes in particular discuss why this case has been drawn out so long. They also talk with a group of family members of victims who support the plea deal if only to get some closure via official statements from the detainees.
Jesus fucking Christ. What useless grandstanding on the Feds’ part.
The original deal, which would reportedly have spared the alleged attackers the death penalty, was criticised by some families of victims.
Of course. It’s an election year. Can’t be ‘soft on terror’.
A lot of the families are for this deal, but it’s a hard sell politically so the trial will continue for many years to come. May never end.
Why would you want to be soft on terror?
it’s a long-known irony that politicians who say they are “tough on X” simply mean they are using ill-considered rhetoric to launch ill-considered legislation, which has the opposite effect.
Isn’t the death penalty federally postponed anyways
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If you have any questions or comments about me, you can make a post to LW Support lemmy community.So close to shutting Gitmo down…
My understanding was these guys would still most likely be there for the rest of their lives with or without this deal.
As I heard it, once the pleas go in the goal was to get them into the federal prison system for life sentences.
Anyone know what method of death penalty they would receive? Lethal injection? Hanging?
Feds do lethal injection, I believe.
Is this federal? I thought it was military
That’s what changed: Austin changed it from military to federal in order to put murdering them back on the table.
Catapulted into the sun, I believe.
It’s actually surprisingly really difficult to hit the Sun. Especially considering literally EVERYTHING in the Solar System is attracted to it.
It’s easier to catapult into Jupiter
Is it?
Couldn’t we just shove them out of a plane flying over Idaho or something?
It’s easier to catapult out of the solar system than into the sun.
Wait what?! How the shit is this still working it’s way through the system after 23 years?!
Who was the officer that originally made the plea deal, and without any white house involvement or even heads up it seems on what would obviously be an attention attracting action? With the general proximity to the election and after all this time they’ve been kicked top, timing feels deliberate to try to cause a difficult public moment for the administration?
Who is this person that approved the pleas originally and what’s their background?
It is mentioned in this article.
Sorry, was late, I missed that. Thanks
Okay, so a lot of layers here, but a few things stand out…
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She was a retired Army lawyer that studied at Berkeley. Austin appointed her to replace trump appointee of year ago - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/us/politics/guantanamo-war-court-appointment.html
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trump appointee had been instructed to seek pleas.
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ACLU is on her side - https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-statement-on-defense-secretary-austin-revoking-plea-deal-for-9-11-defendants
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Feels like news outlets intentionally focused on “plea deal” phrase alone, which many will likely immediately process as “release” instead of saying a firm guilty verdict that secures life in prison over the death penalty (especially reactive, vocal, co-opted 9/11 victims rights groups with a parlance of trump flags on their trucks)
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so timing feels either just like a dumb mistake when you could have pushed to after election with motions I imagine, fear that dems wouldn’t win the election and a new trump admin would execute or a very progressive prosecutor that is too idealistic defiantly trying to make this a front and center election issue, even if it could have toured into a perceived trump strength for swing voters.
Thanks for providing this update. You added some sources and data that I didn’t know, and your last point clearly articulates the set of likely causes of this misstep.
When I first became aware of this story my gut-reaction was “I fucking hate unforced errors like this!”; I’m now very curious why this happened the way it did. Mind you, in the grand scheme of things I suspect this is nothing more than a fleeting political blip.
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So they lied to force false confessions and proceed to execute them anyways?
