The Obama Administration has decided not to prosecute the planner of the USS Cole bombing, which killed 17 American sailors and wounded dozens of others when a boat packed with explosives rammed the side of the warship while it was in the port of Aden. That was inOctober 2000, almost ten years ago.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri,the Saudi al-Qaeda leader who planned the attack was originally supposed to be tried in a military commission in Guantamano, under the reforms put through recently.
Instead, in a filing this week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department said that “no charges are either pending or contemplated with respect to al-Nashiri in the near future.”
What this is about, as one military official who chose to remain anonymous admitted is politics, plain and simple.
President Obama made a huge deal about closing Club Gitmo, and about bringing Gitmo detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to court in civilian trials, and in January of 2009, SecDef Robert M. Gates ordered the Convening Authority for Military Commissions to stop referring cases for trial. That order is still in force, and efforts to proceed to civilian trials are still being held up because there is severe political opposition to it. The bottom line is that the Obama Administration doesn't want to proceed with a trial by military commission against an al-Qaeda figure at Guantamano unless there's a quid pro quo and some prospect of civilian trials for other detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
So justice is once again put on hold for the brave men and women pictured below and their families.
Despicable,but not unexpected from this White House.
( via memeorandum)
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