Military Lawyers Prepare to Speak on Guantánamo

[cal04]

Four years ago, the military’s most senior uniformed lawyers found their objections brushed aside when the Bush administration formulated plans for military commissions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. This week, their concerns will get a public hearing as Congress takes up the question of whether to resurrect the tribunals struck down by the Supreme Court.

“We’re at a crossroads now,” said John D. Hutson, a retired rear admiral who was the top uniformed lawyer in the Navy until 2000 and who has been part of a cadre of retired senior military lawyers who have filed briefs challenging the administration’s legal approach. “We can finally get on the right side of the law and have a system that will pass Supreme Court and international scrutiny.”

(snip)
Beginning shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the military lawyers warned that the administration’s plan for military commissions put the United States on the wrong side of the law and of international standards. Most important, they warned, the arrangements could endanger members of the American military who might someday be captured by an enemy and treated like the detainees at Guantánamo.

But the lawyers’ sense of vindication at the Supreme Court’s 5-to-3 decision is tempered by growing anxiety over what may happen next. Several military lawyers, most of them retired, have said they are troubled by the possibility that Congress may restore the kind of system they have long argued against.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/11/washington/11jags.html?hp&ex=1152676800&en=16c0cf9c5e6009bf&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[EFerrari]

1. "sense of vindication"?

Good lord.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

4. They felt vindicated because the Supreme Court decision supported

their original objections to the Bush policy. I'm not sure I see the problem.

[EFerrari]

5. You're right. I had it exactly backward. n/t

[sandnsea]

2. Common Article 3

Looks like that is what we should be focusing on this week, making sure everybody knows we want a courts martial style procsss that includes Common Article 3. (I haven't gone to read it yet)

"In response, some legislators have said they will consider rewriting the law to make that part of the Geneva Conventions, known as Common Article 3, no longer applicable.

“We should be embracing Common Article 3 and shouting it from the rooftops,” Admiral Hutson said. “They can’t try to write us out of this, because that means every two-bit dictator could do the same.”

He said it was “unbecoming for America to have people say, ‘We’re going to try to work our way around this because we find it to be inconvenient.’ ”

“If you don’t apply it when it’s inconvenient,” he said, “it’s not a rule of law.”

[enough]

3. morning k&r