March 6, 2007, Next thing we do is charge all the lawyers
Friend of freedom, Guantanamo blog proprietress H. Candace Gorman lets the military have it in this piece in the Huffington Post, specifically directed at the (outrageous) decision of Gitmo military commission chief prosecutor Colonel Moe Davis to charge Marine Corps Major Michael Mori (military counsel to Gitmo detainee David Hicks; Mori's co-counsel, Josh Dratel is interviewed here) with speaking contemptuously of the President, Vice-President or Defense Secretary. Mori has traveled to Australia and called the rigged kangaroo courts in which his client is to be tried... rigged, kangaroo courts.
Mori, of course, now that he is facing charges, must retain his own counsel, and inquire as to whether Davis's (unlawful and made up) charge against him would create a conflict in his representation of Hicks, and if it does, thereby delay the military tribunal against Hicks (hopefully by around the 23 months or so before Dubya can hand the mess over the next President, by which time he will have arbitrarily detained hundreds of men without charge, trial, or proper POW treatment in derogation of our treaties for seven years). And Col. Davis, the Pentagon, the White House, and thereby, the lazy-ass press, will repeat accusations that it is the detainees and their counsel that are holding up the process.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Candace told me that Cully Stimson's recent broadside on pro bono Guantanamo detainee lawyers was intended as part of a campaign to ensure that the commissions never got going. Ostensibly, the government has very little evidence against any of its detainees; most of the charges against Hicks, for example, have disappeared, replaced by a charge of "providing material aid to terrorists", which only became unlawful in 2006, around five years after Hicks was already in custody. You get the picture, and it ain't a pretty one.
The New York Times had an editorial called "The Must To-Do List" calling on the new Democratic majority to take some action to start to restore sanity and lawfulness to our government's behavior... culminating in closing Gitmo (and presumably releasing its occupants, or at least charging them with something)...
It would be nice. But given how much courage seems to be floating around Washington (as usual)... let's just say, it's not how you bet.