Guantanamo Smelling Fishy -- What's Happened To Our Country? Posted by David Shorr

Something seemed familiar when I read this morning's New York Times piece on a reservist military prosecutor at Guantanamo who has asked the Army to terminate his assignment over his ethical qualms about the prosecution of suspected terrorists. It's been a while, but sure enough, I've written before about dissension in the military law ranks over another part of the detention system.

You know why this is a big deal? Because I believe the attorney who's quitting. The problem is that I believe Lt. Col Vandeveld rather than the Army's explanation about "personal differences." Truly I'd rather believe the Army. I really want to believe in the basic justice of the system, because at that level, we're talking about the bedrock of democracy and the rule of law. We should be able to count on the system to defend the principles of the presumption of innocence, the adversarial competition of attorneys on a level playing field, and the right to see the evidence against you. Whatever the political pressures and expedience of the moment, justice depends on the system resisting them on the grounds of principle. Except when it doesn't. And then what do we have? See if the following exchange from the Times' coverage sounds like America to you:

But that was a backdrop to what have become attacks by Mr. Mohammed himself that the system is rigged against him. He asserted Wednesday that the military judge was biased and would help the prosecutors get the death penalty.

“You could have simply killed us years ago, instead of simply holding us for years under torture and delaying the process,” Mr. Mohammed said at the first table in the cavernous courtroom.

The judge, Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann of the Marines turned aside Mr. Mohammed’s accusations, with a stiff declaration that he was “completely wrong.”

Again, I don't know the entire context and the facts, but I'd much rather imagine that the judge has grown impatient with the defendant's series of obstructionist tirades. It's a sad day when you can no longer give the benefit of doubt to the rule of law in your own country. America's basic credibility is on the line in these cases, and if nothing else, it's completely plausible that this judge is oblivious to what's at stake. If our system were truly healthy, I should have firm confidence in the independence of the military justice system and its ability to resist any political pressures and any wishes of high officials to rack up guilty verdicts for the War on Terror. Sad to say, I don't.

[In case some of the foregoing irony is obscure, and before anyone rips into me for naivete, let me say that this problem is not a new and belated revelation for me. It's just that when I stepped back, I realized how truly depressing it is.]

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