Our Clusterf%$# in Guantánamo

As has been obvious since their founding, the military tribunals at Guantánamo are completely dysfunctional, and the latest problem, where the FBI has been infiltrating the defense teams is getting even worse:

The major fissure concerning the controversial military commissions at Guantánamo Bay is no longer between civil liberties and national security. It’s between the commissions and the intelligence services, with the future of the 9/11 war crimes tribunal hanging in the balance.

On one side are both the commission prosecutors and defense attorneys, all of whom grapple in different ways with bringing justice to defendants who spent years in the brutal black box that was CIA custody. The prosecution in particular is laboring to send the message that, after years of stop-and-start proceedings, the commissions are now a viable, professional complement to federal courts.

On the other side are the CIA and the FBI, which have gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent information about the detainees – particularly about their torture in CIA custody – becoming public. The intelligence and law enforcement agencies’ equities at Guantánamo, at a minimum, conflict with the successful military prosecution of the detainees. At worst, they undermine the venue meant to provide a final dispensation for alleged post-9/11 war crimes.

And the agencies may now have overplayed their hand.

Last week, defense attorneys for 9/11 co-defendant Ramzi bin al-Shibh revealed that the FBI surreptitiously compelled a classification specialist assigned to them to sign documents indicating he would inform on the defense teams.

They have also bugged defense conference rooms, seized control of the muting system at the trial without the knowledge of the of the judge, and they are preparing to defy that judge's order for details on the CIA's torture program.

If the military tribunals were anything close to a real trial, the charges would have already been dismissed because of malfeasance on the part of the government.

For f%$3's sake, just move this to the Federal Courts, where the jurist are capable of finding their posteriors with either, or both, hands.