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DOD official aggravates many by naming/blaming US law firms defending Guantanameros
A Defense Department official has stirred up a maelstrom in the American legal community by calling on U.S. corporations to boycott law firms whose attorneys represent suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Speaking to a morning radio talk show Thursday, Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, rattled off a list of some of the most prestigious law firms in the nation..."I think quite honestly when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists that hit their bottom line in 2001," he said, "those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms."...Five hundred U.S. lawyers, ranging from solo practitioners to partners in major national law firms, have filed unlawful-detention lawsuits on behalf of Guantanamo detainees.
A serving of the usual rationalizations follows.
I disagree. Stimson was wrong and should be disciplined for this. The lawyers are doing their jobs, and most of them are honorable people who believe in the law. That 1) the law is totally screwed with respect handling foreign jihadis we capture 2) Gitmo is necessary and should be handled outside our usual criminal law and 3) a good part of the country considers the inmates to be akin to fluffy bunnies isn't their fault. They're doing their jobs. Retaliating against lawyers who do their jobs lowers respect for the law, and we can't have that in our country.

The President and the Congress handled this correctly last term: they changed the law to reflect properly the different situation. We'll see if it survives the usual court challenges. But nobody, nobody ought to be going after the honorable lawyers.

The traitor Lynne Stewart is the exception.

Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-01-13
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=177667