Technically, it's Change

But I think violating Habeas Corpus is pretty much the same no matter where you do it. Apparently, the Obama Administration does not agree.

During the campaign, Obama (and pretty much every other Democrat, Independent, and even some Republicans) regularly criticized Bush's policies in Guantanamo Bay. However, as the Washington Independent reports, the new policies being enacted at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan (one of the major detention centers in the nation) sound like "GTMO", Part II.

“They’re setting up what amounts to a CSRT,” said David Remes, the legal director of the non-profit Appeal for Justice law firm who represents 19 Guantanamo detainees. A CSRT is the acronym for a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, the old mechanism at Guantanamo to adjudicate not a detainee’s guilt or innocence, but whether he constituted a threat to U.S. national security. Detainees were at the mercy of hearsay evidence and had the burden of proving that they weren’t a threat and the government’s case against them was erroneous. The Bush administration contended that CSRTs provided all the process rights to which Guantanamo detainees were entitled."

The Washington Post actually heralds this as a victory for the rights of prisoners, since the new policies mean that indefinite detentions can be challenged. But the truth is hidden a few paragraphs down the page:

"Under the new rules, each detainee will be assigned a U.S. military official, not a lawyer, to represent his interests and examine evidence against him. In proceedings before a board composed of military officers, detainees will have the right to call witnesses and present evidence when it is "reasonably available," the official said."

If you're going to have a "trial" where the prosecution and the judges work for the same organization (in this case, the U.S. military), I don't think that really counts as a fair trial. Not to mention the fact that you would be assigned another member of the military to act as your defense council. Surely, this is a huge step forward for the prisoners at Bagram. Now, instead of being held indefinitely without a trial, they will be given a sham trial that will "justify" holding them indefinitely.

Just to be clear: I'm not saying that we should make it easier for terrorists to be released from prisons (least of all in Afghanistan). If we want to hold them indefinitely for being enemy combatants who are a security risk, then so be it. But let's stop pretending like we are giving them a fair shake.