Relatives of 9/11 Victims Add a Passionate Layer to Guantánamo Debate
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/us/10gitmo.html?ref=us
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: December 9, 2008
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — After the detainees charged with the plotting of the Sept. 11 attacks discussed confessing this week, something unusual was heard here: a vigorous public defense of Guantánamo.
“Guantánamo Bay has gotten a bad rap,” said Alice Hoagland, whose son was killed in the 2001 attack.
Hamilton Peterson, whose father was killed that day, said the procedures of the much-criticized military commission tribunal seemed plenty fair. “The entire day,” he said, “was giving these defendants their due.”
The routine here has long included officials making their case for the detentions and trials at the Guantánamo naval base in muted bureaucratese about “fair and open” proceedings. They were outmatched by human rights groups and defense lawyers, with their inflammatory accusations about torture and secret evidence.
This week, the Pentagon brought victims’ families for the first time as observers. The half-dozen family members who spoke to reporters gave the Pentagon the counterpoint it had been lacking.
They also provided a sample of the emotional crosscurrents swirling around President-elect Barack Obama over Guantánamo. He has said he will close the detention camp. But its critics worry he may not carry through. He has said the military commission system has failed. But its critics worry that he may continue it, particularly with the Sept. 11 case now at a pivotal stage.
For each side in the seven-year struggle over Guantánamo, this is the definitive moment in an argument that is a surrogate for other arguments about America’s definition of justice and its role in the world.
This week, that meant the victims’ families were in the thick of an old debate, suddenly turbocharged. Some of them called for Mr. Obama to keep Guantánamo open. Others said the military tribunal here should be permitted to finish its work.
The unaccustomed rebuttal unsettled the Bush administration’s critics here. Defense lawyers and human rights monitors said the Pentagon was using the victims’ family members and had handpicked those invited.
Officials insisted the family members had been selected randomly. But the chief military defense lawyer here, Col. Peter R. Masciola, said he wondered “what the government is trying to make you believe by only bringing the victims they want to bring.”
Thomas A. Durkin, a defense lawyer from Chicago who represents one of those accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks, said the display of the victims’ relatives was an effort to make it politically risky for Mr. Obama to close the military commissions by making it appear that abandoning the military commissions would be abandoning the victims too.
“This show trial is nothing more today than an effort to blackmail him politically,” Mr. Durkin said.
Pentagon officials have a track record of trying to line up pro-Bush-administration observers. In June, the Pentagon withdrew an invitation it had extended to another relative of a Sept. 11 victim, Debra Burlingame, after news organizations learned that she had been invited without any other victims’ representatives. Ms. Burlingame had written that detainees’ lawyers “subvert the truth and transform the Constitution into a lethal weapon.”
This week’s appearance by the victims’ family members came at an awkward juncture for the Pentagon. Its public position is that it stands ready to carry out Mr. Obama’s orders on Guantánamo once he becomes president. But some military officials have been working behind the scenes to convince transition officials that the military commissions may be useful in fighting terrorism.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is to remain in the new administration, muddied the current debate about Guantánamo by saying last week that closing the detention camp was a priority but adding, “I think some legislation probably is needed as part of it.”
The Pentagon has long argued that to close Guantánamo and transfer some detainees to the United States, Congress should pass legislation declaring that the government has the authority to hold detainees indefinitely in the United States even if they are not convicted of any charges.
Civil liberties groups and other critics of the Bush administration have been on alert for any sign that the Obama administration would consider asking for an indefinite detention law. That, in the view of some of critics, would be a first retreat by Mr. Obama on Guantánamo. An Obama call for indefinite detention, they say, could be one short step from continuing the military commissions.
The public debate here has always been a concentrated version of the debate in Washington about detention. This week, there was more at stake because everyone seemed to think it might be their last chance.
For the victims’ families it was their first chance at that last word. Jim Samuel of Brick, N.J., went to the courtroom here to see the men who proudly said they planned the World Trade Center attack. “My son was on the 92nd floor,” he said.
There were some things this week for which there was no rebuttal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/us/10gitmo.html?ref=us
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: December 9, 2008
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — After the detainees charged with the plotting of the Sept. 11 attacks discussed confessing this week, something unusual was heard here: a vigorous public defense of Guantánamo.
“Guantánamo Bay has gotten a bad rap,” said Alice Hoagland, whose son was killed in the 2001 attack.
Hamilton Peterson, whose father was killed that day, said the procedures of the much-criticized military commission tribunal seemed plenty fair. “The entire day,” he said, “was giving these defendants their due.”
The routine here has long included officials making their case for the detentions and trials at the Guantánamo naval base in muted bureaucratese about “fair and open” proceedings. They were outmatched by human rights groups and defense lawyers, with their inflammatory accusations about torture and secret evidence.
This week, the Pentagon brought victims’ families for the first time as observers. The half-dozen family members who spoke to reporters gave the Pentagon the counterpoint it had been lacking.
They also provided a sample of the emotional crosscurrents swirling around President-elect Barack Obama over Guantánamo. He has said he will close the detention camp. But its critics worry he may not carry through. He has said the military commission system has failed. But its critics worry that he may continue it, particularly with the Sept. 11 case now at a pivotal stage.
For each side in the seven-year struggle over Guantánamo, this is the definitive moment in an argument that is a surrogate for other arguments about America’s definition of justice and its role in the world.
This week, that meant the victims’ families were in the thick of an old debate, suddenly turbocharged. Some of them called for Mr. Obama to keep Guantánamo open. Others said the military tribunal here should be permitted to finish its work.
The unaccustomed rebuttal unsettled the Bush administration’s critics here. Defense lawyers and human rights monitors said the Pentagon was using the victims’ family members and had handpicked those invited.
Officials insisted the family members had been selected randomly. But the chief military defense lawyer here, Col. Peter R. Masciola, said he wondered “what the government is trying to make you believe by only bringing the victims they want to bring.”
Thomas A. Durkin, a defense lawyer from Chicago who represents one of those accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks, said the display of the victims’ relatives was an effort to make it politically risky for Mr. Obama to close the military commissions by making it appear that abandoning the military commissions would be abandoning the victims too.
“This show trial is nothing more today than an effort to blackmail him politically,” Mr. Durkin said.
Pentagon officials have a track record of trying to line up pro-Bush-administration observers. In June, the Pentagon withdrew an invitation it had extended to another relative of a Sept. 11 victim, Debra Burlingame, after news organizations learned that she had been invited without any other victims’ representatives. Ms. Burlingame had written that detainees’ lawyers “subvert the truth and transform the Constitution into a lethal weapon.”
This week’s appearance by the victims’ family members came at an awkward juncture for the Pentagon. Its public position is that it stands ready to carry out Mr. Obama’s orders on Guantánamo once he becomes president. But some military officials have been working behind the scenes to convince transition officials that the military commissions may be useful in fighting terrorism.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is to remain in the new administration, muddied the current debate about Guantánamo by saying last week that closing the detention camp was a priority but adding, “I think some legislation probably is needed as part of it.”
The Pentagon has long argued that to close Guantánamo and transfer some detainees to the United States, Congress should pass legislation declaring that the government has the authority to hold detainees indefinitely in the United States even if they are not convicted of any charges.
Civil liberties groups and other critics of the Bush administration have been on alert for any sign that the Obama administration would consider asking for an indefinite detention law. That, in the view of some of critics, would be a first retreat by Mr. Obama on Guantánamo. An Obama call for indefinite detention, they say, could be one short step from continuing the military commissions.
The public debate here has always been a concentrated version of the debate in Washington about detention. This week, there was more at stake because everyone seemed to think it might be their last chance.
For the victims’ families it was their first chance at that last word. Jim Samuel of Brick, N.J., went to the courtroom here to see the men who proudly said they planned the World Trade Center attack. “My son was on the 92nd floor,” he said.
There were some things this week for which there was no rebuttal.