Gitmo's Guerrilla Lawyers ("Must Read, really")

Wall Street Journal ^ | March 8, 2007 | DEBRA BURLINGAME

[FairOpinion]

He was the first American to die in what some have called "the real war." Johnny "Mike" Spann, the 32-year-old CIA paramilitary commando, was interrogating prisoners in an open courtyard at the Qala-I-Jangi fortress in Afghanistan when the uprising of 538 hard-core Taliban and al Qaeda fighters began. Spann emptied his rifle, then his sidearm, then fought hand-to-hand as he was swarmed by raging prisoners screaming "Allahu akbar!"

Shearman & Sterling did far more than just write legal briefs and shuttle down to Gitmo to conduct interviews about alleged torture for the BBC. In addition to its legal services, the firm registered as an agent of a foreign principal under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) as well as the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (LDA) to press the Kuwaiti detainees' cause on Capitol Hill. Shearman reported $749,980 in lobbying fees under FARA for one six-month period in 2005 and another $200,000 under the LDA over a one-year period between 2005 and 2006. Those are the precise time periods when Congress was engaged in intense debates over the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act, legislation which Shearman & Sterling and its Kuwaiti paymasters hoped would pave the way for shutting down Guantanamo permanently and setting their clients free.

Allowing lawyers to subvert the truth and transform the Constitution into a lethal weapon in the hands of our enemies--while casting themselves as patriots--makes a mockery of the sacrifices made by true patriots like Mike Spann. If Sens. Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter, chairman and ranking members, respectively, of the Senate Judiciary Committee succeed in their plan to turn enemy combatant cases over to the federal courts, we will sorely rue the day that we eliminated "lawyer-free zones."

[FairOpinion]

Everyone really needs to read the entire article.

I am sure after you read it you will agree.

[FairOpinion]

ping

[Enduring Freedom]

[HeartlandOfAmerica]

Bump for later

[Carry_Okie]

This all began with Bridges v. Wixon, in which Justice Murphy's horribly crafted concurring opinion argued that Constitutional protections should be extended to Harry Bridges, head of the ILWU, a foreign national, and communist.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Allowing lawyers to subvert the truth and transform the Constitution into a lethal weapon in the hands of our enemies--while casting themselves as patriots--makes a mockery of the sacrifices made by true patriots like Mike Spann.

[Lancey Howard]

BUMP

[aculeus]

bttt

[aculeus]

Shearman & Sterling has many many large corporate clients.

Here's their website.


http://www.shearman.com/

[FreedomPoster]

Bumping, great read.

And a few pings.

It's worth noting that this PR campaign had plenty of willing Useful Idiots on the Left, lapping up every word, and then echoing and amplifying the message.

[FreedomPoster]

And I see you're already on the thread, so my ping was superfluous.

That line was one of two or three that really resonated with me, as well.

[Robert DeLong]

I wonder if this lawyer, the one that wrote the article, could initiate disbarment proceedings against the lawyers she is talking about. I would love that.

[listenhillary]

It would be good to get a client list for the law firm and innundate the clients with copies of this story.

At least this story saw the light of day. Hope we gan make it grow legs.

[listenhillary]

gan = can

[FreedomPoster]

Bump for this important article.

[the anti-liberal]

My Post to the other thread on this article:

Gitmo Chic?

How's this:

Gitmo's Girl (The defense lawyers for Gitmo Jihadists)

Gitmo's Girl
Shortly before their first visit to Guantánamo Bay, on the day after Christmas in 2004, Kristine Huskey and her colleagues were told they could put together a special care package for their 12 Kuwaiti clients, none of whom they'd ever met. Stunned by this small act of grace — you can bring food down there? — the lawyers were suddenly faced with a rather peculiar challenge: What would a dozen observant Muslims want to eat after two years in American custody? They settled on traditional Middle Eastern fare: Nuts. Dates. A baklava they'd bought from a famous store in Detroit. "We put together this whole spread," says Huskey. "And they thanked us — they were very polite about it. But it turns out what they really wanted was pizza and Twix."

Gotta love that liberal press, eh?

[the anti-liberal]

Correction:

Gitmo's Girl (The defense lawyers for Gitmo Jihadists)

[Chgogal]

Outrageous, PING!

"A Montreal-based marketing firm was hired to create the families' full-service Web site which fed propaganda--unsourced, unrebutted and uninvestigated by the media--aimed at the media all over the world. Creating what Mr. Levick calls a "war of pictures," the site is replete with images meant to appeal to Americans: smiling Kuwaiti families wearing T-shirts and baseball caps, cute children passing out yellow ribbons."

"Mr. Levick maintains that a year and a half after they began the campaign, their PR outreach produced literally thousands of news placements and that, eventually, a majority of the top 100 newspapers were editorializing on the detainees' behalf. Convinced that judges can be influenced by aggressive PR campaigns, Mr. Levick points to rulings in the detainee cases which openly cite news stories that resulted from his team's media outreach."

"Mr. Mutairi's profile is the most brazen example of Mr. Levick's confidence that the media can be easily manipulated. The Web site describes him as a member of an apolitical and peaceful sect of missionaries, and that he went to Afghanistan in October of 2000 to "minister in the small mosques and schools" in the country's poorer regions."

"Only one Kuwaiti, Adel al-Zamel, has been sent to prison for crimes committed before his work with al-Wafa in Afghanistan. A member of an Islamist gang that stalked, videotaped and savagely beat "adulterers," he was sentenced to a year in prison in 2000 for attacking a coed sitting in her car. These are some of the men Tom Wilner was talking about when he went on national television and said with a straight face, "My guys . . . loved the United States."

"The guy who really loved the United States stood and fought to protect us from radical Islamists, rather than enable them. In his job application for the CIA, Mike Spann wrote, "I am an action person that feels personally responsible for making any changes in this world that are in my power because if I don't no one else will." We owe our unqualified support and steadfastness to the warriors who take personal responsibility when no one else will."

I cannot tell you how disgusted I am with our justice system....it is blind to justice.

[Chgogal]

This ((((Ping)))) will infuriate you.

[Txsleuth]

Thanks for the ping....a few of us were watching the Senate debate today, with Specter going against Graham and Kyl....

Specter insists that it isn't FAIR not to give those terrorists OUR constitutional rights...sigh.

Anyway, this was most timely....and you guys HAVE to contact your Senators...because this is going to be voted on eventually...we have to DEFEAT Specter and Leahy.

Again, thanks so much for pinging me!!!