December 22, 2008, Hero worship
Andy hits it out of the park (I suppose, in cricket terms, "a six")with his interview with Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham of the Army Reserve, the indispensable man vis a vis justice for Guantanamo detainees. Col. Abraham, who sat on one "combatant status review tribunal," or CSRT, submitted a critical affidavit in the Boumediene case that so incensed the Supreme Court that it granted reargument to permit review after first declining review for the first time in over half a century.
Oh... the one panel that Col. Abraham sat on ("Panel 23") just happened to be the one sitting on Candace's client, al-Ghizzawi. Alas, al-Ghizzawi is still, despite Col. Abraham's concluding there was not basis to hold him, still being held at GTMO. Col. Abraham's short answer is that whether by wilful perfidy or sheer incompetence, the set-up of the military apparatus intended to run the CSRTs was doomed to fail... and did. Miserably. Except in the one thing it was supposed to do: get outside lawyers off the Pentagon's back for a while... which it did, pretty much, until this year, when, finally, prisoners (albeit a pathetic three) have finally been released pursuant to court order, and others at least were ordered released.
In a world all too devoid of heroes, two of mine (Andy and Col. Abraham) have gotten together. Go forth... and as a certain other blogger might say... "read the whole thing."