Gitmo Prosecutor Resigns

On MSNBC last night was an interview with Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, a prosecutor at Gitmo, who finally resigned for reasons of conscience. Vandeveld was a veteran of Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan until he was transferred to Gitmo in 2007. He describes how he was gung-ho for his new mission--prosecuting terrorists and if need be, getting them sentenced to death. What he found at Gitmo was a far cry from what he had been told. Evidence against detainees was gathered in plastic tubs and not filed. The physical evidence was often missing. There were no case files, even for those held since 2003. He found several of the detainees had been sold to the Americans for dollars during the invasion of Afghanistan.

For him, the case that finally forced his resignation was of one Mohammed Jawad, who had been accused of attacking two members of our Special Forces. When he started putting together the prosecution, he found no substantial evidence and he recognized the man had been abused--first in Bagram Air Force base and later at Gitmo. The military defense attorney brought to his attention that there was considerable evidence, available at Gitmo, that showed Jawad was completely innocent and that evidence was known to many for some time. Even though both men joined forces to get charges dismissed on the Jawad case, he was and is still being held in solitary confinement even though the case went up in smoke. For perspective, 17Uighurs, Chinese Moslems, continue to be held after seven years despite the government's conceding their innocence.

Vandeveld became the fourth military prosecutor to resign from his post. This is important because the situation at Gitmo was not revealed by the human rights community, although they have been active in pursuing this issues, but by our armed forces stationed there and who are actually both defense attorneys and prosecutors. The world at large began to get a fuller picture of those detained at Gitmo when military personnel sent the full list of prisoners to human rights lawyers in New York. The Vandevelds of this world are the straight of the straights and take seriously their oath to uphold the constitution of this country. Their politics are generally conservative but their commitment to the order of command and the rule of law is their badge of honor. When you have people like the Vendevelds of the world speak out, it really is time to listen.

After reading almost all the books, magazine and journal articles about this situation, I think the burden of proof now falls on those who argue that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" and the worst of the worst are in Cuba to inform the American people after all these years what concrete plots were thwarted by intelligence gained there. Of three that I have heard, the London plot never existed and the two others were discovered by normal intelligence work.

With John Yoo's spirited defense of torture in the Wall Street Journal and the wave of criticism against the Obama Administration for closing Gitmo, it's time for less fear-mongering and a more intelligent discussion of where to go from here. The John Daly Show pictured various Republican talking heads decrying Obama letting out terrorists in your neighborhood. John Daly showed some of the monsters we have managed to keep locked up in federal prisons, including one very docile white man who talked about eating his victim's brains, and mocked the statements we couldn't keep Muslim terrorists locked up safely. The other issue is how many of those at Gitmo have absolutely no business being there at all.

Dick Cheney in his exit interviews relished talking about Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus and FDR's interning Japanese-Americans as if these were good things Presidents did when at war. He showed absolutely no awareness that history and the public universally came to condemn those abuses. Lincoln's missteps were outlawed following the Civil War by Congress with a warning that they be banned forever. In both Lincoln and FDR's cases, the period of time over which such abuses occurred was four years of combat. Seven and a half years has gone by since 9/11, it is totally appropriate and the right time to review the abuses of the Bush years.