Dumbass "Keep America Safe" group attacks DOJ attorneys as terrorist sympathizers

[MovieMogul]

Quite a number of conservatives and former officials in past Republican administrations have come out against the comments of Cheney & co.

The past several days have seen a shameful series of attacks on attorneys in the Department of Justice who, in previous legal practice, either represented Guantanamo detainees or advocated for changes to detention policy. As attorneys, former officials, and policy specialists who have worked on detention issues, we consider these attacks both unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications.

The American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams’s representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston massacre. People come to serve in the Justice Department with a diverse array of prior private clients; that is one of the department’s strengths. The War on Terror raised any number of novel legal questions, which collectively created a significant role in judicial, executive and legislative forums alike for honorable advocacy on behalf of detainees. In several key cases, detainee advocates prevailed before the Supreme Court. To suggest that the Justice Department should not employ talented lawyers who have advocated on behalf of detainees maligns the patriotism of people who have taken honorable positions on contested questions and demands a uniformity of background and view in government service from which no administration would benefit.

Such attacks also undermine the Justice system more broadly. In terrorism detentions and trials alike, defense lawyers are playing, and will continue to play, a key role. Whether one believes in trial by military commission or in federal court, detainees will have access to counsel. Guantanamo detainees likewise have access to lawyers for purposes of habeas review, and the reach of that habeas corpus could eventually extend beyond this population. Good defense counsel is thus key to ensuring that military commissions, federal juries, and federal judges have access to the best arguments and most rigorous factual presentations before making crucial decisions that affect both national security and paramount liberty interests. To delegitimize the role detainee counsel play is to demand adjudications and policymaking stripped of a full record. Whatever systems America develops to handle difficult detention questions will rely, at least some of the time, on an aggressive defense bar; those who take up that function do a service to the system.

[Fang]

@Giles

Presumably any prosecutor would have to make the argument that these lawyers were not just giving legal advice, but were part of a conspiracy to commit war crimes. It might be a difficult case to make.

What is the standard under international law that would differentiate the two?

[Nars_Glinley]

NVM. Wrong Cheney. I’m a dumbass.

[pravnik]

That is absolutely shockingly reprehensible.

[Merijeek]

@elucidator

Maybe someday, somebody will be the Americans, stand up for American values. Doesn’t look like its going to be us, though. Maybe Denmark.

There are, I am told by trusted sources, people at places like Guantanamo who have done things such as FEED and provide MEDICAL ASSISTANCE to terrorists.

Seems to me someone has been providing MATERIAL SUPPORT and possibly AID AND COMFORT to the enemy.

We need some firing squads, stat!

-Joe

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@elucidator

Maybe someday, somebody will be the Americans, stand up for American values. Doesn’t look like its going to be us, though. Maybe Denmark.

Superman?

This isn’t even an original accusation, though at least that guy got fired.

[villa]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

This is a kind of McCarthyism.

Definitely - the first thing that came to my mind hearing this was:

“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

[BrainGlutton]

John Stewart was all over this on The Daily Show last night (03/09/10). Not only was the first segment about the Liz Cheney flap, but his author-guest was Marc Thiessen, author of Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack.

[pravnik]

Thiessen was equally reprehensible. He drew a distinction without a difference in saying that the John Adams situation wasn’t comparable because those were criminal charges and these are habeas proceedeings, and implied that the attorneys motives were suspect because they had knowingly released enemy combatants with habeas proceedings, as if they’d made an Dillinger style armed charge to spring them directly out of Gitmo rather than convincing federal judges of the illegality of their detention in courts of law. Absolutely shameful.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

Thiessen is the same dipshit who accused Obama of “killing too many terrorists.” He was overbearing and sophist on TDS last night, and then accused Stewart of not lettingh him mae any points (which really only meant that Stewart refused to just sit there and spew bullshit without challenging him).

[BrainGlutton]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

Thiessen is the same dipshit who accused Obama of “killing too many terrorists.” He was overbearing and sophist on TDS last night, and then accused Stewart of not lettingh him mae any points (which really only meant that Stewart refused to just sit there and spew bullshit without challenging him).

Stewart also make a point of letting the audience know that the discussion would (as is often done on TDS) continue off-camera without time constraints, and could be viewed on the show’s website.

[boytyperanma]

@BrainGlutton

John Stewart was all over this on The Daily Show last night (03/09/10). Not only was the first segment about the Liz Cheney flap, but his author-guest was Marc Thiessen, author of Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack.

The full interview is so worth watching. I loved John Stewart having to repeat ‘you are describing a hypothetical’ multiple times to Marc Thiessen who was describing a hypothetical and insisting he wasn’t.

The Daily Show | Comedy Central

[pravnik]

Kenneth Star says they’re over the line.

“This was very unwise and really an out-of-bounds characterisation and challenge to good, honourable lawyers,” he said. “It’s very important for lawyers to be willing to take on unpopular causes to make sure that power is checked, that there are, in fact, arguments being advanced on behalf of those who have been subjected to governmental power.”

Liz Cheney accused of McCarthyism over campaign against lawyers

[bup]

Weird. Ann Coulterthinks Liz Cheney’s group is perfectly reasonable.

[Sweetums]

@bup

Weird. Ann Coulterthinks Liz Cheney’s group is perfectly reasonable.

Ann Coulter also thinks Joe McCarthy was a great American hero. Considering upthread Cheney was accused of McCarthyism, I’m not the least bit surprised.

[Revtim]

@bup

Weird. Ann Coulterthinks Liz Cheney’s group is perfectly reasonable.

Well, I guess I’ll have to rethink my position.

Is Cheney’s group just very wrong, or epically massively wrong?

[elucidator]

In the sense that a galaxy is “pretty darn big”, yes.

[ralph124c]

“…give them a fair trial then hang them”

[SteveG1]

@ralph124c

“…give them a fair trial then hang them”

I thought that was Roy Bean (?)

[VinylTurnip]

@Revtim

Is Cheney’s group just very wrong, or epically massively wrong?

Not only merely, but really most sincerely.