https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/uss-cole-attack-case-now-on-indefinite-hold-at-guantanamo/2018/02/16/e7ec2436-1351-11e8-a68c-e [login to see] e_story.html?utm_term=.9d5e0aa677b9
The Military Commissions Act of 2009, the latest bastardization of law of war court proceedings, has created a legal morass surrounding Global War on Terror detainees accused of war crimes. The Act, aka 2009 MCA, provides virtually the SAME rights to those accused of war crimes that you or I would enjoy in a US federal court of law, unprecedented since WWII. Back then, six of eight German saboteurs, caught dry-foot on US soil, were executed within eight weeks of capture after being denied habeas corpus and tried by traditional military commission. The Law of Land Warfare (Army Field Manual 27-10), stipulates that those accused of war crimes would receive the SAME rights as a US soldier under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. What's wrong with that is it doesn't have good optics internationally or among lawfare proponents. UCMJ proceedings are archaic and favor the accusing authority, giving little opportunity for the accused to exploit the American justice system. Lawfare indeed! We have met the enemy, and he IS us. If we can't get out of our own way on prosecuting suspected war criminals, even those who have ADMITTED their crimes, then we are truly hopeless, helpless and hapless. Sincerely, Montgomery J. Granger, Major, US Army, Retired, and author: Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior; former ranking US Army Medical Department officer with the Joint Detainee Operations Group, Joint Task Force 160, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, FEB-JUN 2002.