Defending the Rule of Law and Proper Behavior for Civilized Nations

Neil Lewis for the NY Times reports that military lawyers, who long objected to Bush's military tribunals, are going to testify to Congress, which is holding hearings to address the Supreme Court decision in Hamdan. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld ignored the dissent of military professionals, and decided to embark on a policy of torture, rendition, kangaroo courts and denial of legal representation for accused. Now a similar concern exists that Republicans in Congress will ignore their objections as well. Lewis quotes Admiral Donald J. Guter, the Navy’s top uniformed lawyer: “It’s a matter of defending what we always thought was the rule of law and proper behavior for civilized nations.” And Lewis quotes Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms, a retired officer who was the chief uniformed lawyer for the Marine Corps: “Our central theme in all this has always been our great concern about reciprocity,” General Brahms said in an interview. “We don’t want someone saying they’ve got our folks as captives and we’re going to do to them exactly what you’ve done because we no longer hold any moral high ground.” --- It is simply staggering that anyone with an intelligence quotient greater than a dirt clod would fail to grasp that simple and monumentally obvious fact. Yet that's precisely what Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham seem unwilling to recognize.