re: #815 karmic_inquisitor

Or could there be more at work? And could it be that both Obama and Holder see that and will maintain and use the Military Commissions system for largely the same reason that Bush did?

Bingo. I disagree with some of what you’ve said, and I favourited your post and will come back to answer you more fully. (Late here and into the booze at the moment). Let me say for now that I completely agree with this bit above.

Fact is the Obama admin is just about as bad (and in some cases worse) than the Bush admin in re: civil liberties etc. Fantasies that this is Obama trying to put the Bush admin policies on trial are just that— fantasies. Obama has in virtually every instance continued or expanded bush policies in re: torture, detention, etc. (Yes, the EIT are suspended, but all the legal action so far undertaken will have the effect of legitimising the Yoo memos ex post facto). The Obama admin isn’t doing anything differently from how the Bush admin would have done it, folks: the tiered justice system, the criminal trials for KSM, the symbolic closing of Gitmo while as many as 75 detainees are being held indefinitely and shuffled off to a neo-Gitmo at Bagram or elsewhere.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, as I said earlier.