Is this our “foot in the door”?

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Good Saturday morning, I hope everyone takes the time to go read, if you missed them, several pieces (links below) on the new News of Jawad’s case, “Mohammed Jawad, the Afghan boy seized {2002} for allegedly throwing a grenade at U.S. troops and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay ever since, may be on his way home to Afghanistan within three weeks.”

A federal judge, ruling for the first time that the U.S. government must release a detainee who once faced terrorism charges, on Thursday told officials to free a young Guantanamo prisoner by Aug. 21 or 22 so that he can return to his home country, Afghanistan.

snip

In a formal order expected to be issued later Thursday (7/30), Judge Huvelle said, the government will be given seven days to prepare a report to Congress that is now required before any Guantanamo detainee is to be freed.  Then, 15 days after that, the government must complete plans for Jawad’s transfer out of Guantanamo, the judge indicated.

By Aug. 24, a written report is due on Jawad’s status, the judge said. “By then, I hope he’s en route to Afghanistan,” she commented.

The blogosphere seems to be a-buzz, I haven’t looked at any MSM just yet.

ALERT: Glenn Greenwald promises a podcast today of an interview with ACLU’s lawyer:

I’m going to have a podcast interview posted here tomorrow {Saturday} morning with Jawad’s lawyer, the ACLU’s Jonathan Hafetz, but for now, I want to emphasize one point.  When Congress passed the Military Commissions Act in 2006, they explicitly denied the right of habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees.  In other words, they tried to bar these detainees from having the very judicial hearings which are resulting in findings that there was no evidence to justify the accusations against them.

I will include more links for you below, but if you do nothing else this weekend, go read this in full (pdf) ((bring Kleenex)):

Closing Argument at Guantanamo: The Torture of Mohammed Jawad, Major David J.R. Frakt.

Links Assigned Reading:

The Greenwald piece itself contains several links to others, Worthington, Scott Horton, etc (the usual suspects), so start there.

scotus blog, July 30th

Worthington: As Judge Orders Release Of Tortured Guantánamo Prisoner, Government Refuses To Concede Defeat

And, FishOutofWater has it on top of the rec list over at orangeville, and there’s links to Valtin there too.

Okay, just go read them all. Pace yourself! lol

All of this is quite stunning, and perhaps timely with this August “recess” upon us.

It is a blatant, vocal, clear, and imperative statement that… just saying “We do not torture”… isn’t gonna cut it. The ACLU lawyers, sure, we expect them to say that. But this is the military JAG Defense Attorney, and the Judge. The JUDGE. The f.cking Judge has all but said: “YELL LOUDER”.

Judge Huvelle was quite scathing.

Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, whose outrage at the government’s case against the Guantánamo detainee Mohammed Jawad, granted Jawad’s writ of habeas corpus yesterday. Huvelle ordered him released-he has been at Guantánamo for six and a half years, since he was no older than seventeen, and perhaps as young as twelve. Huvelle said:

   After this horrible, long, tortured history, I hope the government will succeed in getting him back home…. Enough has been imposed on this young man to date.

She told the government to organize the transfer by August 21st; according to the A.P., “she hoped by then he was on a trans-Atlantic flight.” The plan is to send him to his mother, in Afghanistan.

source, New Yorker.

I am just beside myself whenever I see/hear people (regular ol’ ‘merkins) trying to argue about all this. It’s as plain as the frikkin nose on your face, people! Y’ know, what part of “and liberty and justice for all” do you NOT get?

Greenwald, really, makes several important comments.

One should be hesitant to attribute bad motives to someone based on political disagreements, but some positions are so morally depraved and just plain tyrannical that a rational person has no choice but to do so.  Voting to empower the President to imprison people for life with no charges and no judicial review — particularly where the individuals were not captured on any “battlefield,” thus ensuring a very high risk of error and/or abuse — falls squarely into that category.  

Every time a federal judge orders another Guantanamo detainee released on the grounds of insufficient evidence (and that does not mean “insufficient evidence to convict”; it merely means:  “insufficient evidence even to justify their detention”), just remember that the vast majority of the current members of Congress voted to deny those detainees any opportunity to have a court review their imprisonment, the most basic and defining right of Western justice.  Put simply, they knowingly voted to deny innocent people the right to have a court review their indefinite imprisonment.  If that isn’t morally depraved, what is?

and

The Washington Independent’s Daphne Eviatar notes this amazing fact: “In 28 of 33 Gitmo detainee cases heard so far, federal judges have found insufficient evidence to support keeping them in prison.”  Virtually all of those detainees were held for many years without charges and with no opportunity for judicial review.  Once they finally got into a court, federal judges (including Bush-43 appointed judges) in the vast majority of cases concluded there was virtually no credible evidence ever to justify their detention.  Just consider what that fact, standing alone, means about what our Government has been doing.

Phew. Breathe in, breathe out.

So,okay, yes, Health Care Reform is the hot item, and demands our attention. There really needs to be some citizen activity during this August Recess for Congress to get off their butts on all that. But, I’ll be chewing some gum at the same time myself and watching this closely via Glenn and Andy and Valtin and others.

If anyone has any brilliant ideas on how to move this along, how to mainstream Maj. Frakt’s and Judge Huvelle’s indignant insistence that we Get. This. Right…. let me know. NightProwlKitty made some comments recently (where?) that we just need to “get our foot in the door” to get the ball rolling and push along the needed groundswell. Hence my essay title… h/t to NPK.

Something The Dog Said‘s Weekly Letters rock. And Buhdy of course… just keep bangin’ the drum.  

More please!

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