The Trial of Salim Hamdan

So here we have a guy who was (unquestionably) Osama bin Laden's driver and who may have been (questionably) actually a member of or at least very much aiding Al-Qaeda or who may have been (questionably) actually just a driver, a personal employee, guiltless in bin Laden and Al-Qaeda's crimes. Now he's getting a trial in Guantanamo. Boy do I have questions about this.

So this has been an opportunity for me to learn about our attorney general Michael Mukasey. He's the guy asking for legislation keeping detainees from entering the U.S. based on the "extraordinary risk" they pose. Yet another CRAZY MOVE from the Bush administration. I have a hard time believing that they actually think they can't muster up the security to move detainees to the U.S. safely. Do the detainees on Guantanamo have explosives up their sleeves? So I wonder what the real motive is. To try to keep barriers in place to keep the trial, and the detainees, out of U.S. jurisdiction, so the U.S. military, which is running the court and supplying the jury, stays in charge? A symbolic gesture of disagreement with the Supreme Court's ruling that the detainees can contest their detentions in federal court? Will this make Bush/the party/McCain continue to look tough on terror, helping the American people feel safe? Or maybe they really are paranoid.

My first question about the trial, though, was: what does a jury of Mr. Hamdan's peers look like? Seems like a really just jury would be a global jury. Americans, both civilian and military, Afghanis, Yemenis, another Guantanamo detainee perhaps. Maybe a Saudi or two. Muslims, Christians, Jews, agnostics, Buddhists. Maybe some parents who'd lost sons or daughters here and abroad.

You'd have to have a lot of translators. And I guess one result of the Supreme Court's ruling is that the trials are American-run, so they don't require an international body. But if those folks came to a real consensus, seems likely it would be fair. I fell in love with To Kill a Mockingbird when I read it in eighth grade, so I pretty quickly thought about America's history of prejudiced juries.

I hope the six military personnel they have on the jury chose their careers because they have a strong sense of justice and will do their best to objectively hand Hamdan the sentence he deserves. But, uh, it's also possible that they're pretty biased. The New York Times:

Another [jury member], an Army pilot, said he had been later deployed to Iraq and had been attacked by ground fire there. When Mr. Hamdan’s military lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Brian L. Mizer, asked what the impact might be on the pilot’s ability to judge the case fairly, the pilot answered, “I’m not sure of the answer to that, sir.”

I commend his honesty and humility, but wonder why they picked him.

BUT what's crazy to me is that this jury of six senior military officials can convict with 2/3 support. I don't know the legal precedent, domestic or international, but it strikes me that in a situation where A) there's a good chance the jury is biased and B) a guilty verdict could lead to a life sentence you might want to come to a solid consensus.

those roots

You know how I was saying that Arabic is magical and interesting, etc.? Here's an example of how it's lovely when you start making connections: I realized, today during my lunch break, trying to meet the meager summertime study goals I've set for myself, that the verb "to read" is related to the word "Q'uran." The same root letters- I think the Q, the R, the A. How had I never noticed it before?

It's lovely to me, anyway.