Colonel Morris Davis: Guantánamo’s Charade of Justice

MoonHowler

Colonel Davis’s op-ed piece appeared Friday in the New York Times.

Guantánamo’s Charade of Justice

LAST week, we learned that, only months into the job, the official in charge of the military courts system at Guantánamo Bay was stepping down, after judges ruled he had interfered in proceedings. The appointment of an interim replacement was the sixth change of leadership for the tribunals since 2003.

This is yet another setback for the military commissions, as they tackle two of their highest-profile cases: the joint trial of the chief planner of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and four alleged co-conspirators, and the trial of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused in the bombing of the American destroyer Cole.

That’s not all. Besides the revolving door at the convening authority’s office, six military attorneys have served as chief prosecutor for these courts over the same period. (I was the third.)

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Morris Davis: Where is justice for the men still abandoned in Guantánamo Bay

MoonHowler

gitmo

Colonel Morris Davis:

 

Where is justice for the men still abandoned in Guantánamo Bay

 

“I will be back soon,” I said, as we stood up and shook hands. Then I turned and walked a few steps to the gate, and waited for the guard to unlock it so I could leave. Those were the last words I said to Mohamedou Ould Slahi after I met him in the tiny compound he shared with Tariq al-Sawah in the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay. That was seven and a half years ago. I have never been inside the camp again. Slahi has never been out.

I didn’t know, that afternoon in the summer of 2007, that in a few weeks I would send an email to the US deputy secretary of defence, Gordon England, saying I could no longer in good conscience serve as chief prosecutor for the Guantánamo military commissions. I reached that decision after receiving a written order placing Brigadier-General Tom Hartmann over me and the Pentagon general counsel, Jim Haynes, over Hartmann.

Hartmann had chastised me for refusing to use evidence obtained by “enhanced” interrogation techniques, saying: “President Bush said we don’t torture, so who are you to say we do?” Haynes authored the “torture memo” that the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, signed in April 2003 approving interrogation techniques that were not authorised by military regulations – the memo where Rumsfeld scribbled in the margin: “I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing [for detainees during interrogations] limited to 4 hours?” Rather than face a Hobson’s choice when they directed me to go into court with torture-derived evidence, I chose to quit before they had the chance.

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Colonel Morris Davis: Weiner is a victim of religious discrimination

MoonHowler

That’s one way of looking at it. Moe Davis is right. Too many politicians have done the mea culpa thing and all is seemingly forgiven. Shed a tear or two and you come out a winner. Vitter, Sandord, are just the beginning of a long list of Republican naughty boys who have been forgiven and embraced by the ‘base.’

According to Moe Davis, the solution for Weiner  “…to revive his political career, Weiner needs to move south to a less intellectual state, change the pronunciation of his last name to ‘Win-ner,’ and convert to a New Testament religion like Sen David Vitter and Rep Mark Sanford so he can say “the Good Lord gave me another chance, so shouldn’t you?””

Anthony Weiner does need to convert. Anyone with Weiner for a last name who lives to adulthood really should be forgiven. He is a walking, breathing self-fulfilling prophecy.