Courage of the JAGs — A Defining Moment?
National Public Radio had the best coverage of the day on the House Armed Services Committee testimony by the Judge Advocate Generals of the four branches of the U.S. armed forces today.
Hearing it on All Things Considered as I drove across the Atchafalaya Basin bridge on I-10 this afternoon was an amazing experience. I believe something fundamentally changed today with this testimony.
The press today was in absolute awe of Bush/Rove/Cheney's ability to change the agenda from Iraq/Rumsfeld to the squeeze play his team was attempting to put on Democrats with his new plea for congressional approval of his illegal military tribunals for captured alleged terrorists.
That focus on the game, rather than the facts came to a grinding halt today with the testimony of the JAGs.
Steven Bradbury, the assistant attorney general who testified before the Senate panel for the Bush administration, assured lawmakers that this time, the White House got it right.
"These military commission procedures would provide for fundamentally fair trials," Bradbury said. But he also pointed out one provision that is unheard of in courts of law, that "classified evidence may be considered by the commission outside the presence of the accused."
In explaining the policy, Bradbury said that, "In the midst of the current conflict, we cannot share with captured terrorists the highly sensitive intelligence relevant to some military commission prosecutions."
For Gen. James Walker, staff judge advocate of the U.S. Marine Corps, that provision is a major problem.
"I'm not aware of any situation in the world where there is a system of jurisprudence that is recognized by civilized people," he said, "where an individual can be tried without -- and convicted without -- seeing the evidence against him. And I don't think that the United States needs to become the first in that scenario."
The judge advocate generals of the Army, Navy and Air Force who also testified all agreed with Walker. Some also objected to the commissions' admissibility of evidence obtained under coercion that falls short of torture.
The Bush tribunals would not as "a system of jurisprudence that is recognized by civilized people."
Has anymore powerful indictment of the policy of any U.S. administration ever been delivered in Congress by anyone serving on active duty in the military?
In an exchange included in the airing of the segment on ATC but not in the story carried on the site, under questioning from a North Carolina Democrat, Assistant AG Bradbury admitted that the U.S. would not recognize as legitimate the very standards he was defending if captured U.S. servicemen and women were subjected to them at the hands of their captors.
The political desperation of the Bush administration has compelled it to seek rushed Congressional approval of its methods. The reforms are defined as being outside the norms of legitimate jurisprudence. What does that say about the practices that the CIA and the military have been engaged in prior to this rush for cover?
The military has stood up to the administration in a public way that has not happened before. We are in new territory here. The old plays no longer appear to be working.
Mike Stagg
Democratic Candidate for Congress
Lousiana's Seventh District
http://www.mikestagg.com
Godspeed to the Judge Advocate Generals.
But to call this a 'defining moment' is to disregard the JAG Corps' continuous banging of their heads upon the barrier which was placed between unconvicted humans and due process of law by the Bush Administration.
They should be recognised for their perseverance in the face of what seemed at times to be insurmountable obstacles. Especially by those who had been tasked with defending the Unconstitutionally held detainees at Guantanamo Bay. That is an unthankful duty assignment, and they have shown themselves to possess a great deal of personal honour, as well as a deep understanding what each of their oaths to defend and uphold the US Constitution truly meant.
Mr. Bush has no one to blame but himself, for it was he who arbitrarily, and unlawfully stripped these humans of their Geneva Protocols protections, without first using the methodology of a proper tribunal proces, which is the Treaty's recognised process. It was Mr. Bush who has on multiple occasions stated that these humans are 'unlawful combatants', is this not a clear indication the government holds them as criminal actors? The president was never empowered with the ability to take a human's life liberty or property without first securing a conviction in a process which adheres to due process of law. He has claimed that they do not possess the natural liberties which all humans are born with, endowed by what they view as the force of creation with inalienable rights, equally, across national boundries and religious ideologies. which no rightful governent will rend asunder in an act of illegitimate force.
Mr. Bush must take these humans into an open court, and secure convictions against them under due process of law. If the prosecution suceeds, then and only then, the Connecticut Cowboy, wearing his 37qt Steson may hang 'em high, if he so desires.
Anything less, and we ourselves have become Less Than American.
September 8, 2006 6:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a link to a NYT article, thanks to Josh @TPM. I think what Senator Graham said sums it up:
This could well be a defining moment, or maybe, a redefining moment when we rediscover our moral compass and reassert our belief in justice. As McCain said "it's not about them; it's about us."
Glenn
I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts. - Mark Twain, Wearing White Clothes Speech, 1907
September 8, 2006 8:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not one to give Graham rousing acclamation. Until late fall, 2005, I had been a supporter of his, even in places unfriendly to Republican lawmakers. This is because Graham has stood up and challenged the Bush Administration, as well as its shameless GOP defenders on the treatment of detainees, since Abu Ghairab first became public knowledge. Graham was also one of the primary Senate GOP members to back McCain's anti-torture amendment in the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2006.
Since October 5, 2005, Graham has worked on methods to gut habeas corpus, and has implied that it is not a natural liberty, but instead a right that a generous state allows to its citizenry. For this, Graham must be resisted.
Graham would be hard-pressed to find in our over 200 year history where Prisoners of War had been redefined through only a presidential fiat, as a new 'criminal combatant' class, and this is disingenuous on his part, revealing Senator Graham's lack of faith in the American Judicial Process. The detainees are either POWs, held honourably under the protections of the Geneva Protocols, or they are humans detained by the US government, charged as criminal, and who remain in full possession of their due process rights. This is not a function of citizenship, but instead is a natural right all humans are endowed with. To claim anything less is to defame American Ideals.
There is little to fear from frivolous habeas corpus filings, and the argument that it clogs Federal Courts has no merits. Federal Judges are unlikely to subscribe to radically novel habeas corpus claims, which are ungrounded in well-established case law. It take an experienced Federal Judge very little time to comprehend whether a habeas corpus claim has merit or not. If Graham's worry about detainee's habeas corpus filings are clogging up the Court system is correct, then these habeas corpus claims have troubling underlying allegations, and therefore, they have proper standing to be heard at the Federal Bench. Instead of complaining, Graham should be making sure that the Federal Judiciary is large enough to handle its caseload, instead of equivocating on natural rights, and seeking to limit a freedom that congress has not the constitutional authority to meddle with.
At the same time, Graham has been active in limiting Bush's claim to a presidential war power authority that exists outside of constitutional restrictions, and should be noted for it, but I will not give unqualified backing to a Senator who wrongfully believes that Senatorial Power exists outside of the constitutional framework.
September 10, 2006 7:11 AM | Reply | Permalink