Washington Is Playing With Fire

The Guantanamo Military Tribunal’s Sentences Are Totally Worthless.

The prosecution asked for life in prison. The Military Tribunal at Guantanamo handed down a much milder sentence of five and one-half years to Osama bin Laden’s ex-chauffeur, Salim Ahmed Hamdan. Conservative commentators in the United States immediately pointed to this as proof that a military tribunal could function against terrorism just as fairly as a civilian court. It’s difficult to avoid thinking the judges probably felt the same way: “Look, everybody! Look how independent we are!”

In fact, the judges may just as well consider their sentence meaningless because Hamdan will serve a sentence they did not give him: life behind bars at the U.S. government’s pleasure. They will simply keep him in prison after he has served his time.

In its final months, the Bush administration won’t even pretend to give the Guantanamo system any legitimate legal basis. Last week, Washington announced that “enemy combatants” could be imprisoned indefinitely despite the sentences given them. That fits right into their plans. The latest Supreme Court attempt to bring Guantanamo in line with constitutionally guaranteed rights and principles has thereby been aborted. The Bush administration simply refuses to do so, and no one can do anything about it.

Even if one ignores the fate of more than 270 people still illegally imprisoned at Guantanamo, this amounts to playing with fire. Governments that dispense with the separation of powers generally don’t belong in the same camp with democracies.

Guantanamo must finally be closed and the treatment of suspects in the war on terror must be according to established legal criteria. That’s necessary if we are to take the U.S. president at his word when he-–rightly-–condemns the Chinese human rights record before taking his seat in the Olympic stadium.