‘We can’t have acquittals.’
Something much more important than Rev. Wright’s performances happened yesterday. Morris Davis, the DoD’s former chief prosecutor for terrorism, took the stand at Gitmo in defense of a terrorism suspect and declared in so many words that the U.S. military tribunal system is a sham. The Washington Post has the story:
Davis told Navy Capt. Keith J. Allred, who presided over the hearing, that top Pentagon officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England, made it clear to him that charging some of the highest-profile detainees before elections this year could have “strategic political value.”
Davis said he wants to wait until the cases — and the military commissions system — have a more solid legal footing. He also said that Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes II, who announced his retirement in February, once bristled at the suggestion that some defendants could be acquitted, an outcome that Davis said would give the process added legitimacy.
“He said, ‘We can’t have acquittals,’ ” Davis said under questioning from Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, the military counsel who represents Hamdan. ” ‘We’ve been holding these guys for years. How can we explain acquittals? We have to have convictions.’ “
Davis also decried as unethical a decision by top military officials to allow the use of evidence obtained by coercive interrogation techniques. He said Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser to the top military official overseeing the commissions process, was improperly willing to use evidence derived from waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning. “To allow or direct a prosecutor to come into the courtroom and offer evidence they felt was torture, it puts a prosecutor in an ethical bind,” Davis testified. But he said Hartmann replied that “everything was fair game — let the judge sort it out.”
He also said Hartmann took “micromanagement” of the prosecution effort to a new level and treated prosecutors with “cruelty and maltreatment.” Hartmann, he said, was trying to take over the prosecutor’s role, compromising the independence of the Office of Military Commissions, which decides which cases to bring and what evidence to use.
Davis, who initially defended the commissions process, testified that he resigned his position as chief prosecutor late last year as senior officials increased pressure on him to make decisions he thought were inappropriate. He now heads the Air Force Judiciary and plans to retire. Hartmann declined to comment on the proceedings through a spokesman, Air Force Capt. Andre Kok.
Read the rest right here. More at TPM.
on April 29th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Scandalous!
Shameful!
The military tribunal system, that is.
on April 29th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Justice, in the current regime, is whatever ideology dictates,Joe.
on April 29th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Hmmm…Isn’t a person who’s being held captive for “strategic political value” a hostage, not a prisoner? So now not only torture, but also taking hostages is part of American policy?
on April 29th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
The problem is that the ideology of the witnesses are not the same as that of the questioners, so more severe measures are necessary. Some have asked here what would Augustine do in some circumstances. Most likely Augustine would agree with those Davis is trying to correct. Letter 104 (excerpted below) shows Augustine’s reasoning. The Christians involved in the same crime Nectarius is discussing with Augustine should be punished less according to Augustine because they have the true faith and are more likely to have true repentance. Certainly too many Christians will agree with the stray general on this and they have no less a source than Augustine.
This is just one of the examples in which Augustine has influenced political thought.
From letter 104. 9. I grant that, as you write, penitence procures forgiveness, and blots out the offence, but it is that penitence which is practised under the influence of the true religion, and which has regard to the future judgment of God; not that penitence which is for the time professed or pretended before men, not to secure the cleansing of the soul for ever from the fault, but only to deliver from present apprehension of pain the life which is so soon to perish. This is the reason why in the case of some Christians who confessed their fault, and asked forgiveness for having been involved in the guilt of that crime,— either by their not protecting the church when in danger of being burned, or by their appropriating a portion of the property which the miscreants carried off,— we believed that the pain of repentance had borne fruit, and considered it sufficient for their correction, because in their hearts is found that faith by which they could realize what they ought to fear from the judgment of God for their sin.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102104.htm
on April 29th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
I don’t see what’s so weird about this.
We’ve got a government that has squandered billions fighting a war on international terror against a country that was not trading in international terrorism. A Homeland Security office that, as far as I can see, moves the little Terror Alert Light back and forth from orange to red periodically. And cracker-jack technocrats who advise Americans to secure their homes from biological attacks by duct-taping Saran Wrap over their windows (apparently these geniuses don’t have cats …)
A policy of “there must be convictions” to justify the years the detainees have been caged up in Gitmo is simply the next joke in the eight-year comedy that has been the Bush administration.
on May 1st, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Jean,
If the Bush years are a comedy, it is one very dark comedy and no laughing matter, especially for those at Gitmo.
on May 2nd, 2008 at 8:46 am
John, I didn’t say I was laughing.
But current political leadership in this country is such a travesty that if you can’t see the satiric possibilities of the last eight years, you’ll go mad.
The Bill Clinton fiasco proved that the impeachment process doesn’t work. What have we come to when we’ll impeach someone for lying about an episode of philandering (what husband doesn’t??), but let Bush, whose policies regarding torture and incarceration are immoral to say the least, skip off scot-free and serve out a term of office in the face of approval ratings that have been consistently under 50 percent (and were last night reported to be 27 percent, a new low even for him.)
At least you Canadians could call for a no-confidence vote and get rid of the disgrace. We’re stuck.