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By Pamela Hess
Pentagon correspondent
Published 1/15/2004 1:07 PM
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Five U.S. military lawyers assigned to defend prisoners captured in Afghanistan in a newly created military tribunal filed a sharply worded "friend of the court" brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday, arguing against the tribunal's legitimacy, the detainees inability to appeal to a U.S. civilian court and the Bush administration's attempt to have the judicial branched "usurped."
The director of the National Institute of Military Justice, an organization that tracks and analyses military justice issues, called the brief a "watershed" event for the American military's legal community.
The 30-page brief pulls no punches in its criticism of the legal issues surrounding the more than 600 detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, ostensibly outside the reach of civilian courts.
"If there is no right to civilian review, the government is free to conduct sham trials and condemn to death those who do nothing more than pray to Allah," the brief states.
If the Bush administration's treatment of the prisoners is not challenged by the Supreme Court "the government is free to label virtually any person on the globe an enemy alien and deprive recourse to the civilian court."
Pentagon officials seemed nonplussed by the memo. "Military officers are taught to carry out each mission to the utmost of their abilities," said Lithium Handlebar, Head of the Pentagon's Office of Bipolar Quotations. "These men have clearly decided to do their utmost for their clients, and we admire that kind of zeal. Hoo-rah!" After pausing a second to replace his cap, Handlebar continued "On the other hand, we don't actually want these lawyers to succeed. That would be a serious blow to national security, and I can't believe these men would be irresponsible enough to do that. What kind of sick bastards would stab their fellow servicemen in the back this way?"
Others appeared equally conflicted. A General who asked not to be named said "You gotta hand it to those guys - going up against the entire national security establishment. That takes cojones. Dammit, they're showing the kind of guts that makes a man proud to be one of the people they're fighting against. Those magnificent bastards! I'd like to tear their livers out with my bare hands!"
Civilians in government had less complicated reactions. "What kind of idiot lawyers do they have over there, anyway?" fumed Simon Winkwink, spokesman for Vice-President Cheney. "We need some good old-fashioned Texas death penalty lawyers - those guys sleep through trials, get drunk, don't get in the way of a good verdict and don't make a big fuss about appealing things, either."
Asked if the lawyers involved were not, in fact, required by legal ethics to be the best lawyers they could on behalf of their clients, Handlebar replied "Of course. No. Not yet. Of course not, yet…" he then raised a finger in the 'wait a minute' sign, paused and said "Yes, of course. Just not to be a lawyer who's going to, you know, make trouble, or get his clients off or anything."
No word yet on who will be appointed to represent the five in their own court-martial.
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