Charges Dropped Against USS Cole Suspect

While you were busy last night:

The Pentagon's senior judge overseeing terror trials at Guantanamo Bay dropped charges Thursday against an al-Qaida suspect in the 2000 USS Cole bombing, upholding President Barack Obama's order to freeze military tribunals there.

The charges against suspected al-Qaida bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri marked the last active Guantanamo war crimes case.

The legal move by Susan J. Crawford, the top legal authority for military trials at Guantanamo, brings all cases into compliance with Obama's Jan. 22 executive order to halt terrorist court proceedings at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

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Obama was to meet with families of the USS Cole and 9/11 victims at the White House on Friday afternoon and may announce the move.

Seventeen U.S. sailors died on Oct. 12, 2000, when al-Qaida suicide bombers steered an explosives-laden boat into the Cole, a guided-missile destroyer, as it sat in a Yemen port.

There is also rumor that Mr. Obama will also halt the pending prosecution of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others, thus explaining why he has invited victims' families of both events to the White House.

Everyone will be assured, of course, that the cases are being dropped "without prejudice" - they could be refiled. But will they be? And if the cases are ultimately tried in civilian courts instead of military tribunals, will the long delays and the roller coaster nature of what has happened cause the cases to be tossed anyway?

Is this justice? And isn't it just a bit arrogant and cold to bring in the victims' families to break the news to them that justice for their lost loved ones will be delayed (if not denied) yet again?

I'm not sure where Obama is going on this but I don't like the drift or the message it sends to our enemies out in the world.