(newsgroups trimmed way down)

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 13:44:48 GMT, Fred J. McCall <fmccall@earthlink.net> 
wrote, in us.military.army:

>"Paul J. Adam" <news@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>:What would _you_ consider a "fair trial", Fred, and would your opinion
>:change if you were the defendant?
>
>Paul, nobody wants a 'fair trial' when they're the defendant.  They
>just want to get off.

Sometimes 'getting off' IS a fair trial.  :-)

>This lot will get fairer trials than they've got coming.  Why is it
>none of your lot are willing to wait for the bad outcomes you keep
>shrilling about to occur before tearing your hair out and wailing to
>the skies?

Because, by that time, it may be too late.  Under international law,
every accused person is entitled to be treated humanely, to be 
properly advised of any charges against them,  to be properly 
advised of their right to defend themselves.  Holding people at
Guantanamo doesn't excuse the US from obeying international
law.  We get away with it only because we're the most powerful
nation on earth and no one dares to challenge us.

>Hell, wait until the first trial happens and someone gets sentenced.
>Then you MIGHT have something to complain about.  However, I'd bet you
>won't.  The military, unlike a civilian court, is going to be pretty
>scrupulous about things before they'll sentence someone to death.

My understanding is that there will be no appeals, or at best,
limited appeals.  So if, by chance, something -does- go wrong,
all avenues of redress will be closed.  I don't call that a 'fair'
anything. 

>You might want to look at just when the last time was that a military
>court handed down a death penalty.  

Irrelevant to the question at hand.  Regardless of the outcome,
all trials must be fair if justice is to be served.

It would have been better, IMO, if we had asked the UN to
set up an international tribunal to deal with the situation.
But we did not, so we are stuck with the decision made
by our government to do everything in secret behind
closed doors.  No offense intended to the US military
justice system, but I think it was a bad call.

YMMV.

Henrietta K. Thomas
Chicago, Illinois
hkt69@earthlink.net