Wrong about drones...wrong about NDAA

This week as so many are droning about drones, the same crowd that has been wrong on this issue was shown to be completely wrong in their scare-mongering about the NDAA.

As you might have heard, Bin Laden's son-in-law was recently captured. Over the objections of the neocons, he was brought to the U.S. (instead of being sent to Guantanamo) and will be tried in a federal court.

By law, Abu Ghaith should have been transferred to military detention under the provisions of the Fiscal Year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which requires all members of al Qaeda or associated forces to be taken into military custody at least temporarily. But the NDAA provides a wide carve out for the commander-in-chief’s discretion in war time. And the President is authorized to waive the requirement entirely if he certifies to Congress that end-running the law is in the national security interests of the United States.

Several senior administration officials tell TIME Obama exercised the waiver in Abu Ghaith’s case after consulting his top aides, opting to send Ghaith to trial in the Southern District of New York rather than to Gitmo. “The President’s national security team – including the Defense Department and members of the Intelligence Community, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and the Department of Justice – unanimously agreed that prosecution of Ghaith in federal court will best protect the national security interests of the United States,” one senior official said

The rationale for this decision...

Why did the administration choose civilian courts? “The Administration is seeking to close Guantanamo, not add to its population,” says one administration official.

Nuff said.