May 26, 2010, First thing we do let's grill all the lawyers
It seems that the Government's latest exercise in poor sportsmanship in Guantanamo detainee contested habeas cases (in which it holds every advantage, but is still losing over 70% of them anyway) is to insert clauses in the very same House bill that ensures that Guantanamo will remain open (and hence an open beacon and focal point for all of America's enemies to rightfully regard us as the monstrous hypocrites we are, thus requiring a continued and expensive military presence everywhere) that will now add an extra level of harassment toward the intrepid souls who signed on to do detainee representation by authorizing Defense Department investigations of any detainee lawyer with the temerity to do his or her job too effectively.
No one is suggesting that anyone who uses the cover of being an attorney to actually facilitate acts of terrorism shouldn't be subject to investigation or prosecution for such conduct..but no one is actually suggesting that anything of that kind has actually happened. The stated grounds by the measure's sponsor, naturally a Republican Congressman, but that's too easy since the entire House Armed Services Committee passed the measure unanimously, Democrats and all... is that detainee lawyers who do their jobs too effectively, by, say, obtaining access to information concerning the torture and abuse of their detainee clients at the hands of American personnel are, in our best Kim Jong Il, being disloyal. Candace has more on this latest act of Congressionally sanctioned totalitarianism.
Well... actually, the lawyers-- unlike our fascism-loving Congress-- are actually acting in the interests of the rule of law, and the advancement of liberty. Lest we forget, between detainees released and detainees who have won their habeas cases and remaining detainees "cleared for release" by the Bush and/or Obama Administrations, over 90% of the men who have passed through Guantanamo have-- by the Government's own reckoning-- been detained improperly-- an insanely high admitted 90% error rate, that will, presumably, go higher as more detainees win more habeas cases. And yet... Congress-- and most of the public-- still behaves as if there were any merit at all to the "worst of the worst" canard.
I think I have a very different definition of "worst of the worst.". One of these days, the pharmacy is going to run out of a few things, and people are going to take to the streets. Or something. Except, of course, when they are picked up in mass-arrests, there will be no one left to represent them, because the rest of us were too busy being complacent and asleep when the Government began cracking down on the lawyers, because, of course, lawyers were and are the last line of defense to keep the Government honest... but hey, the lawyers were, you know, representing bad people, The Government told us so, so it must be true.
Hey... isn't the Idol final tonight? What do you think... Crystal or Lee?