[Ppnews] Next They Came for the Lawyers...

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/cohn01162007.html

January 16, 2007


Next They Came for the Lawyers...


Stimson's Outrageous Threat

By MARJORIE COHN

In one of the most severe threats the Bush 
administration has dealt to our constitutional 
democracy, the Pentagon attacked the lawyers who 
have volunteered to represent the Guantánamo 
detainees.  Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 
Charles Stimson threatened corporate lawyers who 
agree to defend the men and boys imprisoned 
there.  Flashing a list of corporations that use 
law firms doing this pro bono work, Stimson 
declared, "Corporate C.E.O.'s seeing this should 
ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers and representing terrorists."

In 1770, John Adams defended nine British 
soldiers including a captain who stood accused of 
killing five Americans.  No other lawyer would 
defend them.  Adams thought no one in a free 
country should be denied the right to a fair 
trial and the right to counsel. He was subjected 
to scorn and ridicule and claimed to have lost 
half his law practice as a result of his 
efforts.  Adams later said his representation of 
those British soldiers was "one of the most 
gallant, generous, manly and disinterested 
actions of my whole life, and one of the best 
pieces of service I ever rendered my country."

Federal Judge Green, who has handled the many 
habeas corpus petitions filed by the Guantánamo 
detainees, expressed appreciation for the 
lawyers: "I do want to say we are very grateful 
for those attorneys who have accepted pro bono 
appointments.  That is a service to the country, 
a service to the parties.  No matter what 
position you take on this, it is a grand service."

More than 750 men and boys have been held like 
animals in cages during the last five years at 
Guantánamo.  Many were picked up by warlords and 
sold to the US military for bounty.  None has 
been tried for any crime.  Very few even have any 
criminal charges against them.

Ironically, there were no alleged terrorists 
connected with 9/11 there until Bush recently 
transferred 14 men from his secret CIA prisons to 
Guantánamo.  Meanwhile, hundreds of detainees 
languish in custody, aided by 500 courageous 
lawyers from 120 firms who have volunteered countless hours to represent them.

Under the Military Commissions Act Bush just 
got  Congress to okay without any notable qualms, 
the Guantánamo prisoners could be held for the 
rest of their lives without ever seeing a 
judge.  Those who decide that death could not be 
worse than life at Gitmo have participated in a 
hunger strike.  Rather than subject the Bush 
administration to embarrassment when prisoners 
die in US custody, military guards force feed 
them.  Thick plastic tubes are forced down their 
throats with no anesthesia.  Tubes are not 
sterilized before being reused on other 
prisoners.  The UN Human Rights Commission called 
the force-feeding "torture."  Many prisoners also 
report being tortured during interrogations.

Guantánamo has become the symbol of US 
hypocrisy.  While fighting the "war on terror" 
and attacking other countries for their human 
rights abuses, the officials in the Bush 
administration have become war 
criminals.  Torture and cruel or inhuman 
treatment are punishable as war crimes under the US War Crimes Act.

The Supreme Court held in Rasul v. Bush that the 
Guantánamo prison is under US jurisdiction, so 
prisoners there are entitled to the protections 
of the Constitution.  The Sixth Amendment 
mandates that every person charged with a crime 
has the right to be defended by an attorney.  The 
government is forbidden by the Fifth Amendment 
from denying any "person" - US citizen or not - 
due process of law. The presumption of innocence 
is enshrined in our legal system.

Bush's attack on lawyers is the latest assault on 
our civil liberties, which now includes 
warrantless surveillance of our phone calls and 
email, and most recently, our US Mail.  Although 
the Bush admiknistration  says it is spying on 
the terrorists, those who criticize its policies, 
including the  illegal and immoral war on Iraq, 
are also invariably in the cross hairs.

All Americans should heed the words of Martin 
Niemoller: "First they came for the Communists, 
but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. 
Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I 
was not a Social Democrat, so I did 
nothing.  Then came the trade unionists, but I 
was not a trade unionist.  And then they came for 
the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did 
little.  Then when they came for me, there was no 
one left who could stand up for me."

George W. Bush should, but won’t,  immediately 
renounce Stimson's threats and relieve him of his 
duties.  A country that would sacrifice its own 
values under the guise of protecting them has no moral authority in this world.



Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson 
School of Law, is president of the National 
Lawyers Guild and the US representative to the 
executive committee of the American Association 
of Jurists.  Her book, "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways 
the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law," will be published in June.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org  
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