Bushco's Military Commissions Are An Embarrassing Stain Compared To Nuremberg (Scott Horton)

[kpete]

The Great Guantánamo Puppet Theater
DEPARTMENT No Comment
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED February 21, 2008

Pentagon general counsel William Haynes–the man who now oversees the tribunal process for the Defense Department. “(Haynes) said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time,” recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, something that had lent great credibility to the proceedings.

“I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process,” Davis continued. “At which point, (Haynes’s) eyes got wide and he said, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can’t have acquittals, we’ve got to have convictions.’”

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Hartmann was quick to invoke the model of the Nuremberg trials, calling these proceedings a “modern Nuremberg.” In fact, the Nuremberg process is worthy of emulation and had the Bush Administration turned to its grand design, or even some of the other model international tribunals, most of the embarrassment that now surrounds the Gitmo moral swamp would have been avoided. Robert H. Jackson, arguably America’s greatest attorney general, was responsible for structuring those proceedings. He made clear throughout that he was guided by two concerns. The first was to do justice. And the second was to be damned sure that the public recognized that justice was being done. He accomplished both goals, and the result was a landmark international law and a point of pride for America.

But the military commissions crafted by the Bush Administration are an embarrassing stain compared to Nuremberg. One of the main reasons is that they have been crafted by political hacks out on a partisan agenda, and the experts who could have done a credible job–first among them the military lawyers in the JAG corps–have been ignored or overruled at each turn. The ability of defense counsel to conduct a meaningful defense has been impeded, with gains coming grudgingly only after the Supreme Court overturned the first, colossally incompetent structure in Rasul. Most menacingly, the specter of torture hovers over the current military commissions proceedings, with the acknowledgement that many of the defendants were subjected to techniques which the entire world (excluding only the Bush Administration) considers to be torture.

Even most critics concede the professionalism and integrity of the military lawyers who are assigned to the military commissions system as judges, prosecutors and defense counsel. Their professionalism and integrity are not an issue, or more precisely, protecting their professionalism and integrity from political predators is the issue. Critical attention focuses today just where it did at the outset: on the political hacks who have shamelessly attempted to manipulate the system, and whose misconduct is bringing shame and opprobrium upon the United States. Colonel Davis’s description of his conversation with Haynes comes as a surprise to no one who has been tracking this issue. To the contrary, it is a bit of the well-understood reality of the situation bubbling to the surface.

more at:
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002460

[patrice]

1. I am not proud of this pResident. nt