European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 10, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday april 10 2007 stars and stripes Page is opinion tribunals of the absurd the Norm at Gizmo by Ben Wizner with the guilty plea and sentencing of australian David Hicks before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay recently the United states achieved something it had not attempted since Nuremberg the conviction of a foreign citizen in a military tribunal for violation of the Laws of War As in Nuremberg it was not just the Detainee on trial but the military commission system itself the legitimacy of the enter prise hinges of whether the us Demon Strates to the world that it can provide impartial Justice to those it accuses of War crimes i travelled to Guantanamo to observe the Hicks proceedings and to say that they lacked the dignity and gravitas of Nuremberg is to engage in colossal understate ment the military commissions have been a profoundly unserious Legal exercise from the Start the prison at Guantanamo was fashioned As an Island outside the reach of us Law and the commissions were de Vised to provide an illusion of Legal pro Cess if that sounds extreme consider the Hicks Case the defendant travelled to Paki Stan and Afghanistan joined with extremists and was captured in decernber2001 defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld later said he was among the worlds most dangerous terrorists Hicks was first charged by a military Tri Bunal in 2004 accused of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism attempted Mur Der and aiding the the executive order creating those tribunals was declared illegal by the supreme court last year so Congress passed the military com missions act and Hicks was charged again this time solely with providing material support to a designated terrorist organization he struck a plea bargain on March after jury of senior Mili tary officers sentenced Hicks to seven years in prison we All Learned the details of that agreement Hicks will serve a Mere nine months a sentence More in keeping with a Misdemeanour than with a grave terrorist offence this stunning turn of events highlights a cruelly ironic feature of detention at Guantanamo in an Ordinary Justice system the accused must be acquitted to be released in Guantanamo the accused must plead guilty to be released because even if he is acquitted he remains an enemy combatant subject to indefinite detention Only by striking a Deal does a Detainee stand a Chance of getting out and so the Lone Guantanamo Detainee who has admitted guilt will be in Australia within 60 Days and free before the end of the year meanwhile about 385 others who have not been accused of a crime May remain in detention until the cessation of hostilities in the War on terror a Distant abstraction not an actual event in the plea Deal Hicks was required to affirm that he had not been illegally treated while in us custody but those words Are meaningless Hicks earlier alleged that he was brutally abused when he was turned Over to us forces in Afghanistan but in the Bush administrations View that treatment was not illegal at the time unless in the words of the notorious Justice department memo it inflicted pain equivalent to serious physical injury such As Organ failure impairment of bodily function or death thus in denying that he had been illegally treated Hicks in no Way denied that he had been abused moreover in a highly unusual provision the agreement requires that Hicks not speak to the Media for a year gag rules Are not imposed to prevent people from Tell ing lies they Are imposed to prevent peo ple from telling the truth in this Case How Hicks was treated after his capture and during his detainment what Are we to make of this How did a shackled Detainee is escorted while being transported inside the detention Center at Guantanamo Bay us naval base Cuba on dec 6 the very first Case brought before a Mili tary commission a system we were told was necessary because of the danger and impracticality of prosecuting arc terror its in us in a sentence of Only nine months if Hicks is even remotely As menacing As the United states once asserted then the government is grossly negligent to permit his release on these terms but no one believes that to be the Case instead it is widely understood that the government made extravagant claims that simply could not withstand scrutiny no wonder the administration has fought so vigorously to deprive Guantanamo detainees of the Bedrock right of Hareas Corpus the right to Challenge unlawful detention in court this the supreme court declined to review a Challenge to the military commissions act which stripped Federal courts of jurisdiction to hear Hareas Cor pus challenges filed by enemy combat ants so Justice for the detainees at Guantanamo will be delayed for at least one More year meanwhile David Hicks once deemed among the worst of the worst be Home and free an unwitting sym Bol of our shameful abandonment of the Rule of Law Ben Wizner is an attorney with the american civil liberties Union this column first appeared in the los Angeles times convicted combatants deserve War criminals Fate by Henry Mark Holzer Indio Calif at Guantanamo Bays holding Facil Ity the combatant status review tribunal hearings have begun for the worst of the worst soon these Savages will be adjudicated As unlawful enemy combatants later face military tribunals eventually be convicted and hopefully put to death if death sentences Are ordered rest assured that the enemy combatants Proter Aorist lawyers aided and abetted by their fellow travellers from some of americas largest Law firms Waituse every available strategy and tactic to defeat the hopefully capital punishment their clients richly deserve when the Hue and cry is sounded for mercy it would be Well for americans to remember what happened on june 19 1947 on the Island of Guam Early in world War h the Marine corps organized a guerrilla battalion named after its Leader it col Evans f Carlson in the summer of 1942 two companies of Carl sons raiders attacked Makin atoll in the South Pacific Gilbert islands the raiders principal Mission was to de stroy the japanese Garrison installation and supplies a secondary goal was to make the japanese worried about similar attacks so they reinforce other Small Pacific islands thus spreading their troops thin an interesting Side note is that among the raiders was maj James Roosevelt one of president Franklin d Roosevelt four sons the Story of the Makin raid has often been told and although accounts differ about some aspects of the engagement and its Success there is no dispute that several Marine raiders didst get off the atoll when the main Force withdrew the marines were taken to another Japa nes held Island Kwajalein As prisoners of War when the islands commander sought to remove the marines to Japan he was told by vice adm Koso Abe that it would no longer be necessary to transport prisoners to the Mainland from then on american prisoners of War would be Dis posed of on the Island in other words the Marine prisoners were to be executed that s exactly what happened on oct 161942 in a formal ceremony celebrating a japanese Holiday the Ameri cans were beheaded on april 161946 a United states Mili tary commission was convened on Guam on june 191947 the Provost marshal of Guam informed the Marine corps com mandant that in accordance with the sen tence of the military commission vice adm Abe had been hanged a similar Fate should await every enemy combatant convicted by a military com Mission at Guantanamo if he is found guilty of having killed a defenceless Ameri can Henry Mark Holzer professor emeritus at Brooklyn Law school is author most recently of the supreme court opinions of Clarence Thomas he wrote this column for Mcclatchy Tribune news service Mcclatchy Tri Bune did not subsidize the writing of this column and the opinions do not necessarily represent the views of Mcclatchy Tribune or its editors 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