NYT editorial: "It’s obvious why the administration is attacking the lawyers."

[DeepModem Mom]

Editorial
After the Lawyers
Published: April 27, 2007

....William Glaberson reported in The Times yesterday that the Justice Department had asked a federal appeals court to remove some of the last shreds of legal representation available to the prisoners (at Guantanamo Bay).

The government wants the court to allow intelligence and military officers to read the mail sent by lawyers to their clients at Guantánamo Bay. Lawyers would also be limited to three visits with each client, and an inmate would be allowed only a single visit to decide whether to authorize an attorney to handle his case. Interrogators at Guantánamo Bay have a history of masking their identities, so the rule would make it much harder than it already is to gain the trust of a prisoner.

Perhaps the most outrageous of the Justice Department’s proposals would allow government officials — on their own authority — to deny lawyers access to the evidence used to decide whether an inmate is an illegal enemy combatant. Not even the appalling Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through in the last days of the Republican-controlled Congress, goes that far.

The filing, with the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., says lawyers have caused unrest among the prisoners and improperly relayed messages to the news media. The administration offered no evidence for these charges, probably because there is none. This is an assault on the integrity of the lawyers, reminiscent of a former Pentagon official’s suggestion that they are unpatriotic and that American corporations should boycott their firms....

***

It’s obvious why the administration is attacking the lawyers. It does not want the world to know more than it already does about this immoral detention camp. And brave lawyers have helped expose abuse and torture there, as well as detentions of innocent men — who are a large portion, if not a majority, of the inmates at Guantánamo Bay. The Bush administration does not want these issues aired in public, and certainly not in court.

Mr. Bush thinks that he has the right to ignore the Constitution when it suits him. But this is a nation of laws, not the whims of men, and giving legal rights to the guilty as well as the innocent is a price of true justice. The only remedy is for lawmakers to rewrite the Military Commissions Act to restore basic rights to Guantánamo Bay and to impose full accountability for what has happened there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/opinion/27fri1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[Hekate]

1. KnR. I want my country back, DMM.

At least the NYT is taking notice of this travesty.

Hekate

[aquart]

2. Trying to earn back its soul?

[Hekate]

4. I hope so--a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,& the NYT has a long way to go!nt

[DeepModem Mom]

5. I think the editorial page stays pretty separated from the rest of the paper --

except in a case like this, where Times reporting leads to an editorial.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. They do, indeed. n/t

[OneBlueSky]

6. maybe they're all reading Shakespeare . . .

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" . . .

wait a minute . . . BushCo? . . . reading? . . . n-a-a-a-ah . . .

[jaysunb]

7. lawlessness.....

n/t

[Canuckistanian]

8. I really don't understand Guantanamo

Why are they going to such lengths to keep it going?

It can't be for the intelligence they get. Most of it is probably wrong and out of date anyways.

They don't even seem to be capturing the right people.

And the stories told by the tortured must have them chasing red herrings everywhere.

And the bad PR it's causing is actually LOSING them the trust of any potential informers. AND the world's respect.

So what is it? What is worth all these negatives? What's the ideology here?

A "practice ground" for future domestic prisons? A personal "hobby farm" for sickos who enjoy homoerotic violence?

[Hekate]

9. I have some observations based on the little we know, but like you I just don't get it...

It runs so sickeningly contrary to everything we have ever stood for. As Molly Ivins said in cataloging a litany of BushCheney wrongdoing, we've gone from a country that never countenanced torture to one that officially and openly does.

I am aware of human rights abuses perpetrated by graduates of the School of the Americas and the like, but the whole point of the steady protests against that institution is that This Is Not Supposed To Be Us And We Won't Stand For It.

Now we have *holes in charge of the country that are trying to justify and normalize this as a way of operating. There have been video games out for a long time -- now there's a tv show. Are these media offerings part of the conscious propaganda, or are their creators simply fools and tools?

Guantanamo may well be a training ground for brutalizing ordinary American troops -- that is, desensitizing them to the performance of heinous acts. I do not think it was an accident that various personnel at Abu Ghraib were previously posted at Guantanamo.

How odd, as I write these words, that tears are welling up in my eyes. What grief am I feeling, what sense of loss, for my beloved country and what we have become...

We can pull ourselves back from this darkness, but it will be more than a matter of winning a few elections, although that is the requisite first step. A critical mass of American people have to wake up from their stupor.

Hekate

[Canuckistanian]

15. Thanks for your post

I've been thinking about it for a while.

You know, I have the luxury of standing back and observing your country from a distance.

But I can never imagine the true horror of knowing that people are dying and suffering needlessly because of the actions of a few who call themselves "leaders".

And that there's nothing you can do but wait.

Take heart. The bastards will be gone soon.

[Hekate]

16. Thank you back, C

:hi:

Hekate

[pberq]

10. Someone said that the reason for Guantanamo

is to gain absolute power - this can be interpreted in a couple of ways. First is the absolute power to detain anyone, including citizens, as long as they want without a trial. Second is more general - absolute power to do anything they want, regardless of the law.

[Canuckistanian]

14. The "Total Dominance" theory. Great.

From the point of view of an invader, the theory stinks. It's much more likely that these kind of detentions make people more angry. Not fearful. Mad as Hell.

And angry people do more desperate acts.

Wait, perhaps THAT'S the purpose after all.

Keep the war going. At any cost. Even if it means creating MORE hatred against Americans.

Even if it means more instability.

It sure would help to encourage the arms industry to produce more killing machines.

And THAT's profitable.

[pberq]

18. Yes!

"Keep the war going. At any cost. Even if it means creating MORE hatred against Americans.

Even if it means more instability.

It sure would help to encourage the arms industry to produce more killing machines.

And THAT's profitable."

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

17. One of the gov't's arguments to rein in the lawyers

is that Guantanamo is in a foreign country. What a load of crap! * won't even recognize that Cuba exists as far as Americans traveling to it, and now he's claiming it as a reason to justify destroying the rule of law? Unbelievable!

[John Q. Citizen]

11. We are the American Empire. So we have to act like it or what's the point?

[Jim Sagle]

12. It's a direct threat to US. "Shut up or we'll kidnap and torture you."

What other reason COULD there be?

[Canuckistanian]

13. It's sort a a "blunt object" approach to intelligence gathering

And certainly not effective.