Guantanamo military lawyer breaks ranks to condemn 'unconscionable' detention

[babylonsister]

Guantanamo military lawyer breaks ranks to condemn 'unconscionable' detention
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 27 October 2007

An American military lawyer and veteran of dozens of secret Guantanamo tribunals has made a devastating attack on the legal process for determining whether Guantanamo prisoners are "enemy combatants".

The whistleblower, an army major inside the military court system which the United States has established at Guantanamo Bay, has described the detention of one prisoner, a hospital administrator from Sudan, as "unconscionable".

His critique will be the centrepiece of a hearing on 5 December before the US Supreme Court when another attempt is made to shut the prison down. So nervous is the Bush administration of the latest attack – and another Supreme Court ruling against it – that it is preparing a whole new system of military courts to deal with those still imprisoned.

The whistleblower's testimony is the most serious attack to date on the military panels, which were meant to give a fig- leaf of legitimacy to the interrogation and detention policies at Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. The major has taken part in 49 status review panels.

"It's a kangaroo court system and completely corrupt," said Michael Ratner, the president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which is co-ordinating investigations and appeals lawsuits against the government by some 1,000 lawyers. "Stalin had show trials, but at Guantanamo they are not even show trials because it all takes place in secret."

more...

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3101949.ece

[malaise]

1. K & R for human rights n/t

[enough]

2. And another k&r for that brave un-named military whistle-blower (nt)

[rubberducky]

3. This whole administration and everything it has touched is a farce.

[DemoTex]

4. "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold .." (W.B. Yeats)

"Surely some revelation is at hand .."

Indeed there is. Almost every day brings a new revelation about the crime, corruption, and wanton destruction by Bu$hco and the GOP. The world knows. Oh, yes! The cat (The Cat-O-Death, as it were) is long out of the Bu$h/Cheney bag.

W.B. Yeats presciently observed, “The best lack all convictions, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Never has that been so true as today.

But, as a veteran of the American war in Viet Nam, I believe firmly in the principle of What Goes Around, Comes Around. In Viet Nam we said "Payback is a Motherfucker." It was, and still is.

Yeat's Spiritus Mundi, the "spirit of the world" (a concept that will make a PNACer's head explode), will be the un-doing of Bu$h and his reign of horror. Sooner or later. Verb Sap you vapid little slack-jawed, beady-eyed, murdering, torturing Chickenhawks. Verb-fucking-Sap!

The hairs on your arm will stand up. At the terror in each sip and in each sup. For you partake of that last offered cup, Or disappear into the potter's ground. When the man comes around. (Johnny Cash)

[WillyT]

5. Big K & R !!!

:kick: