January16, 2007:
Charles Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee
affairs, touched off a new fight with human rights lawyers by suggesting that
corporate clients might want to re-evaluate who they do business with. As one
can expect, this sort of comment did not sit well with the human rights groups,
who threw a fit. A Department of Defense ( DOD) spokesman later repudiated the
comments.
However,
the comments do raise a couple of points. First, many of the lawyers who are
waging lawfare are doing so pro bono. They have gotten the resources to do so
through their work on other cases. Naturally, it is only fair to point out who
is doing that work.
Second,
while it might have stung human-rights groups and the legal profession, the DOD
does have the right to speak out about criticism that has been unfair. Looking
at the facts, the term unfair is arguably an understatement when one looks at
the way human-rights groups and the media have distorted Guantanamo Bay. The
"FBI documentation" of mistreatment was rehashed in media coverage of
Stimson's remarks, against with no discussion of the results of DOD
investigations or the fact that DOD interrogations (often at the center of
mistreatment allegations) have resulted in the acquisition of valuable
intelligence.
Lawfare
does not just run the risk of setting terrorists loose (although that is bad
enough). The lawfare can potentially compromise methods of gathering
intelligence and the sources who provide information to the United States. This
is because the discovery process in the American judicial system often requires
this. For instance, when Omar Abdel Rahman was tried in 1995 on terrorism
charges, intelligence information was turned over in accordance with the rules
governing discovery. Several years later, it was learned that some of that
information had found its way to al Qaeda's leadership, telling them who the
United States was tracking.
The
firestorm of controversy, of course, revealed one more double-standard for the
human rights groups. They are perfectly willing to dish out criticism and call
for Guantanamo Bay to be closed. However, when their actions against the DOD
get criticized by the DOD, they cry "intimidation" and run to the
press for support, and the press coverage forces the DOD to backtrack. It seems
that freedom of speech is only applicable when it is against the DOD, and not
for the DOD. – Harold C. Hutchison ([email protected])