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13 Jan 07 - 04:12 PM (#1935504) Subject: BS: We don' need no legal system From: dick greenhaus WASHINGTON — The senior Pentagon official in charge of military detainees suspected of terrorism said this week that he was dismayed that lawyers at many of the nation's top firms were representing prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that the firms' corporate clients should consider ending their business ties. |
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13 Jan 07 - 04:22 PM (#1935514) Subject: RE: BS: We don' need no legal system From: JohnInKansas Not too surprising, since one announced candidate* for the presidency has made three attempts at legislation, and wants a Constitutional amendment, to prohibit the courts from hearing any case in which any public official claims "God's Law" as the basis for any action. * Senator Brownback, fortunately not at present a leading candidate. John |
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13 Jan 07 - 08:45 PM (#1935760) Subject: RE: BS: We don' need no legal system From: Amos The NY Times editorializes: Round Up the Usual Lawyers Published: January 13, 2007 "No one who has followed President Bush's policies on detainees should be surprised when a member of his team scorns American notions of justice. But even by that low standard, the administration's new attack on lawyers who dare to give those prisoners the meager representation permitted them is contemptible. Speaking this week on Federal News Radio, a Web site and AM radio station offering helpful hints for bureaucrats and helpful news for the administration, Cully Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, tried to rally American corporations to stop doing business with law firms that represent inmates of the Guantánamo internment camp. It does not seem to matter to Mr. Stimson, who is a lawyer, that a great many of those detainees did not deserve imprisonment, let alone the indefinite detention to which they are subjected as "illegal enemy combatants." And forget about the fundamental American right that everyone should have legal counsel, even the most heinous villain. In his interview, reported yesterday by The Washington Post editorial page, Mr. Stimson rattled off some of the most respected law firms in the country that, after initial hesitation, have courageously respected that right. He called it "shocking" that they were "representing detainees down there" and suggested that when corporate America got word of this dastardly behavior, "those C.E.O.'s are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms." He added: "We want to watch that play out." When his interviewer asked who was paying these firms for the work, Mr. Stimson said, "It's not clear, is it?" Actually, it is quite clear. Mr. Stimson surely knows that the vast majority of those cases are being handled for free by law firms that have not signed on to Mr. Bush's post-9/11 revision of the American rules of justice. Still, he persisted, saying some lawyers were "receiving monies from who knows where." The interview was a greatest-hits remix of Bush administration nonsense about Guantánamo, including Mr. Stimson's message to corporate executives that lawyers "are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line in 2001." The only terrorists at Guantánamo associated with 9/11 were transferred there recently after being held for years in secret C.I.A. prisons where no lawyer could enter. Not only do we find Mr. Stimson's threats appalling, we differ with him about 9/11. The tragedy and crime of that day was that thousands of innocents were slaughtered — not that it hurt some companies' profit margins." A |
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13 Jan 07 - 11:22 PM (#1935860) Subject: RE: BS: We don' need no legal system From: GUEST I presume that all this legal work for the detainees is Pro Bono. |
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14 Jan 07 - 12:24 AM (#1935900) Subject: RE: BS: We don' need no legal system From: Barry Finn Not at all, Guest, they've all been holding down decent jobs for the last six years just so they could pay for decent representation when they do finally make it into a decent court room. I predict they'll have to wait at least 2 more years or until Bush is out of the White House, which I hope is sooner. What else did you expect Amos from an idiot whose been given his job by an idiot. They must all back each other's plays & backs no original thing done here just mindless mimics. Corporate America staffs attorneys specializing in military law & cases pretaining to terrorism & non combatants? Just who is this Bart Simson preaching to? Barry |
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14 Jan 07 - 04:25 AM (#1935998) Subject: RE: BS: We don' need no legal system From: eddie1 Maybe in some roundabout way, Stimson has done the anti-Guantanamo Bay cause a big favour by bringing it into the limelight again. As a UK citizen, I hesitate being a pot calling the kettle black but IMHO there's a big difference in someone being kept in custody, without a trial, for thirty days while investigations are ongoing and folks being shut up for years with no charge and no investigation. The danger is that, without idiots like Stimson, the problem gets shoved to the back of your mind. When you think that the West points the finger at Eastern countries about abuse of human rights! The sooner Bush & Blair are out, the better for the world. Thanks for starting this thread Amos but it's to our shame that you had to. Eddie |
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14 Jan 07 - 04:27 AM (#1935999) Subject: RE: BS: We don' need no legal system From: eddie1 Sorry, Dick started it - put my mistake down to my feeling angry! Eddie |