Lt Col Darrel Vandeveld was a gung ho reservist when he was called up after 9/11 to serve as a military lawyer. He was still all fired up about his mission when he was appointed a prosecutor for the Guantanamo military commissions.
“I went down there on a mission and my mission was to convict as many of these detainees as possible and put them in prison for as long as I possibly could,” he told the BBC.
“I had zero doubts. I was a true believer.”
That’s when he learned first-hand that the Guantanamo justice system is predicated on trampling all over the most cherished principles of American justice, that the Guantanamo justice system is a perfect oxymoron.
When he arrived, … he soon discovered that defence lawyers were not receiving information which could help clear their clients, including evidence that suspects had been “mistreated” in order to secure confessions.
It was one case in particular, that of a young Afghan called Mohammed Jawad, which caused most concern.
Mr Jawad was accused of throwing a grenade at a US military vehicle.
Col Vandeveld says that in a locker he found indisputable evidence that Mr Jawad had been mistreated.
After Mr Jawad had tried to commit suicide by banging his head against a wall at Guantanamo, Col Vandeveld says that psychologists who assisted interrogators advised taking advantage of Mr Jawad’s vulnerability by subjecting him to specialist interrogation techniques known as “fear up”.
He was also placed, Col Vandeveld says, into what was known as the “frequent flyer” programme in which he was moved from cell to cell every few hours, with the aim of preventing him sleeping properly, and securing a confession.
A devout Catholic, Col Vandeveld found himself deeply troubled by what he discovered.
The discovery precipitated “a profound moral crisis” that ultimately led to his resignation:
But the classified nature of his work meant he was unable to share his growing doubts with friends and family.
As a result, he took the unusual step of emailing a Jesuit priest called Father John Dear, who is a well known peace activist.
In his email, Col Vandeveld talked of having “grave misgivings”.
Father Dear was initially unsure if the email was serious and fashioned a quick reply.
“I sort of didn’t believe it. But on the off chance he was a military prosecutor I wrote back and said ‘quit’.”
Col Vandeveld says his jaw dropped when he read the email, adding: “I lived in dread of that answer.”
But eventually he did resign and has chosen to speak out about what he saw, giving the BBC his first interview.
“I never suffered such anguish in my life about anything,” he says, looking back over the period.
“It took me too long to recognise that we had abandoned our American values and defiled our constitution.”
Col Vandeveld also described the Guantanamo tribunals as a “stain on America’s military”, and said they “have sullied the American military and the constitution”.
Now here’s what I consider to be the punchline of the BBC article:
Col Vandeveld was forced to undergo a mental status evaluation after expressing his concerns and his military career is over.
According to Bush’s military, if you object to torture and to withholding exculpatory evidence from defense lawyers, you need to have your head examined.
But strangely enough, no head examination is prescribed when Bill Kristol advocates awarding the Medal of Freedom to some of the “CIA agents who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the NSA officials who listened in on phone calls from Pakistan”.
*** Update, 6:56 am ***
Departing U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Wednesday that he saw no reason for prosecutions or for pardons for those who gave legal advice on the Bush administration’s terrorism policies.
Significantly, he did not rule out head examinations.
For someone who presides over the law enforcement machinery of the U.S. government, Mukasey has some decidedly strange ideas.
Here’s Mukasey on prosecutability, for example:
“There is absolutely no evidence that anybody who rendered a legal opinion either with respect to surveillance or with respect to interrogation policy did so for any reason other than to protect the security of the country and in the belief that he or she was doing something lawful,” he said.
“In those circumstances, there is no occasion to consider prosecutions, there is no occasion to consider pardons,” Mukasey said.
Silly me! I didn’t realize that if you’re trying to “protect the security of the country” and if you believe you are doing something lawful, it becomes irrelevant whether you actually broke the law or not.
I bet Oliver North wishes Mukasey had been the Attorney General back in 1988 when North was indicted on sixteen felony counts in connection with the Iran-Contra affair.
And here, unforgettably, is Mukasey on Justice:
Mukasey said he strongly believed that none of the (Guantanamo) detainees should be released into the United States.
And if one of the dangerous detainees receives a short sentence from a military tribunal, Mukasey said it would be “suicidal” to release that person after the sentence has been served. Asked if that was justice, he answered, “Yes.”
Let us all pray that one day Mukasey too receives the justice he so richly deserves.