I’d like to note for the record that torturing people makes it impossible to prosecute them without running sham trials that undermine public confidence in the government. One of the main reasons we haven’t closed Gitmo is because we can’t come up with a way to legitimize the ongoing detention of some very dangerous individuals who should never be released. For example, the man who organized the U.S.S. Cole bombing ought to be put on trial and convicted. But it has taken how long for this to happen? And now the prosecution is doing things like this?
When the war court reconvenes this week, pretrial hearings in the case of an alleged al-Qaida bomber will be tackling a government motion that’s so secret the public can’t know its name.
It’s listed as the 92nd court filing in the death-penalty case against a Saudi man, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was waterboarded by CIA agents.
And in place of its name, the Pentagon has stamped “classified” in red.
When we waterboarded this dude, we became criminals, too. And he put ourselves in a position of having to undermine our system of justice in order to protect ourselves and get justice for the families of the sailors that this man killed.
