Timing the Guantanamo Trials

The Bush administration's extraordinarily unsuccessful attempt to engineer a series of show trials at Guantanamo is about to accelerate.

The Pentagon has declared the Guantanamo war crimes trials a national priority and will more than double the number of military lawyers assigned to them ... . [A]bout 108 uniformed military lawyers [will] be added to the prosecution and defense teams in the next three months.

You think this has nothing to do with the upcoming election? Then why, after warehousing "enemy combatants" (or whatever the administration is calling them today) for the last six years without a single trial, have trials (perhaps including death penalty trials) become a sudden priority?

Pressed for details on the timing, [Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas] Hartmann said, "I don't know that it always wasn't the No. 1 priority but I know that it was formally declared the No. 1 priority in the last two or three weeks" by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England.

Is the administration orchestrating an election year reminder of 9/11 in a sudden rush to judgment at Guantanamo? (more ...)