9/11 case faces further delays as Gitmo judge steps down

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/guantanamo-judge-911-case-retiring [login to see]
Since day one, the legal ground on which the modern detention of unlawful combatants has been built has been shaky. Declaring that although the unlawful combatants held at the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention, but would nonetheless be "treated within the spirit of Geneva," then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld began the long and misguided journey that has left us in a legal morass today. The Geneva Conventions and Law of Land Warfare do not protect unlawful combatants because they do not play by the rules. Six of eight German saboteurs were executed in 1942 after being caught dry-foot on US soil with the means and intent to destroy property and kill innocent Americans. Denied habeas corpus and then tried under military commission, less than eight weeks after their capture, these German spies were convicted and then sent to the electric chair. The saboteurs had not hurt a fly nor destroyed any property, but were found in violation of Geneva and the Law of War. Every detainee brought to Gitmo were at least unlawful combatants, and could have been lawfully killed on the battlefield, yet 731 have been released, and not one has been beheaded, executed, blown up, hacked to death, dragged naked and lifeless through the streets, drowned or burned alive, all things our enemies have done to us and/or our allies. Detainees at Gitmo enjoy FREE Qurans, prayer rugs/beads, white robes, beards, halal and special Muslim holiday meals, directions to Mecca, services of US military Muslim Chaplains, world class health care, books, TV, DVD's, sports and recreation. 30 percent of those released are suspected or known to have returned to the fight. And now, we cannot even prosecute the most obvious of criminals, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who has admitted (bragged about) his role in the attacks of September 11, 2001, and has admitted (bragged about) beheading American reporter Daniel Pearl. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 was struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, as the court found that detainees may petition for habeas corpus because, among other reasons, Gitmo is "defacto" US territory. The replacement law, the Military Commissions Act of 2009, went way beyond the norm by giving unlawful combatants accused of war crimes virtually the SAME rights you or I would enjoy in a US federal court. Absurd! Unprecedented! And now the legal morass is further complicated by a change in judges. Someone needs to step in and then say, "Enough!" The law and precedent are written. The Law of War allows unlawful combatants accused of war crimes to be tried under the SAME rules as US soldiers would receive should they be accused of a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, no more, no less. These are the same rules under which those German saboteurs were tried and then convicted under in 1942. An unlawful combatant, spy, saboteur, double agent, or whoever breaks the Law of War or Geneva Conventions should be tried under these laws and then executed if found guilty. Only then can we see clearly to move forward in our effort to win the Global War on Terror.