US Supreme Court to Hear Tribunals Challenge

abcnews: The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider a challenge to the Bush administration's military tribunals for foreign terror suspects, a major test of the government's wartime powers.

Justices will decide whether Osama bin Laden's former driver can be tried for war crimes before military officers in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Chief Justice John Roberts, as an appeals court judge, joined a summer ruling against Salim Ahmed Hamdan. He did not participate in Monday's action, which put him in the difficult situation of sitting in judgment of one of his own rulings.

The court's intervention piles more woes on the Bush administration, which has already suffered one set of losses at the Supreme Court and has been battered by international criticism of its detention policies.

"I think it's a black eye for the Bush administration. This opens a Pandora's box," said Michael Greenberger, a Justice Department attorney in the Clinton administration and law professor at the University of Maryland. Read more

db: "Military justice is to justice what military music is to music." - Groucho Marx*

*thanks B