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It’s Enough To Make an American Proud

Posted by SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist in At TMV.
Feb 29th, 2008 | Comments

A reader responding to my post on what a Democratic president and Congress should do about the Bush administration’s many scandals had a pretty good idea, albeit tongue in check: Send The Decider, Cheney, Gonzo, Rummy and Company to the Navy brig at Guantánamo Bay where they would be held without rights and waterboarded to see if they would yield any good intelligence.

The idea in fact has great appeal in the wake of a startling development:

Colonel Morris D. Davis, the former chief prosecutor at Guantánamo and an outspoken champion of the administration’s extralegal military commission system, has agreed to testify at Gitmo on behalf of detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden.

Davis acknowledges that Hamdan is guilty as sin, but the commission system itself needs to be put on trail because of its inherent unfairness, including the potential for rigged outcomes.

The Air Force colonel is not the first career military lawyer to part ways with the Bush administration over its perverse compunction to turn the Rule of Law on its ear in order to railroad terror suspects, but he is certainly is the most promiment to put his career on the line.

Davis’ change of heart is somewhat mitigated by his reputation as a hot dog and the fact that he is nearing retirement, but it nevertheless is a salutatory act of conscience and would be deeply embarrassing to the White House if it had a conscience.

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PaulSilver

Someone who understands what US power is really based on. Bravo!
A profile in courage.

arcticredriver

Davis is a confusing character. Two years ago he was very tough in his very personal criticisms of Omar Khadr's character, and his views of how the Press was failing the public in representing him as a child. (Khadr was fifteen years old when captured.)

In his comments Davis made some serious factual errors. He criticized Khadr for not being grateful to US medics who saved his life. He said that medics stepped over the dead body of their buddy to treat Khadr's wounds. In fact, Christopher Speer, the GI who was mortally wounded that day, wasn't dead, and only died of his head wounds two weeks later. It was a discrepancy I noticed at the time, and of which I thought Davis should have been aware of. I assumed Davis knew it, but trusted the public wouldn't.

Early this month Khadr had his most recent hearing. The package of documents handed out to reporters was supposed to contain a five page witness statement from the GI who shot Khadr that was so heavily redacted to be useless. By accident this witness statement was released in the clear, unredacted.

It revealed that the case against Khadr was much weaker than claimed. This eyewitness confirmed that, as anyone would expect, American medics only treated the heavily wounded Khadr after the heavily wounded Speer had been treated.

It also revealed that all the claims that Khadr must have been the sole survivor was a lie.

It revealed that the grenade was thrown over a three metre wall. No one saw the thrower.

It revealed that the GI who shot Khadr testified the grenade was not the first sign of survivors. He testified that there was "directed rifle fire" that preceded the grenade. When he saw the grenade he spurted past the mouth of the "alley" where the rifle fire and grenade originated, firing as he went.

When the dust cleared, and he looked back into this alley he saw a survivor, moaning on the ground, next to an AK-47, and he shot him in the head. Then he saw another figure, facing away from the skirmish, sitting, leaning against a bush. He shot this figure twice, in the back.

Davis must have read this account. But, in public, he presented a very different, highly colored version.

shaun

arcticredriver:

Thank you for the additional background which certainly amplifies on my simplistic description of Davis having a "reputation as a hot dog."

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