Fire Cully Stimson
The Washington Post has an editorial decrying the barely veiled threat Cully Stimson, a Deputy Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, made against law firms with lawyers defending detainees.
The editorial states:
This is a call for economic retaliation against those who merely provide detainees with a defense. It is unAmerican and despicable. Cully Stimson has no place in our government.
The editorial states:
"Actually you know I think the news story that you're really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, 'Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,' and you know what, it's shocking," he said.
Mr. Stimson proceeded to reel off the names of these firms, adding, "I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out."
Asked who was paying the firms, Mr. Stimson hinted of dark doings. "It's not clear, is it?" he said. "Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they're doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I'd be curious to have them explain that."
This is a call for economic retaliation against those who merely provide detainees with a defense. It is unAmerican and despicable. Cully Stimson has no place in our government.
posted by Macswain at
12:45 PM
5 Comments:
This is so typical of the Bushies... the concept that every defendant has a right to the best defense is at the HEART of the American justice system. In typical neo-con fashion, though, here they're trying to undermine that basic American value.
Just another example of their trying to inject Fascism into our country. I wish I wasn't so jaded by the past six years. Instead of burning with white hot rage over this, I shake my head and say "here we go again..." Which, if course, is how they win. sigh...
By
Harold Phillips, at 10:43 AM
Thank god someone else thinks like me. This story has me more riled up then anything I can think of in the last 5 years. Stimson must go. I predict he'll be gone in the next few months. Brad Weinberg
By
Anonymous, at 8:54 PM
What amazes me most about the incident is that the right engages in economic retaliation against those who do anything it dislikes but that this guy was stupid enough to say it out loud.
I suspect that the media will treat this as exceptional rather than as what it truly is --- business as usual for the Bush administration.
By
Macswain, at 9:28 AM
if you are outraged by Stimson's comments and want the restoration of habeas corpus get involved at:
projecthamad.org
join the project!!
By
Anonymous, at 3:09 PM
WASHINGTON - The U.S. military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half-dozen times to middlemen for countries — including Iran and China — who exploited security flaws in the Defense Department’s surplus auctions. The sales include fighter jet parts and missile components.
In one case, federal investigators said, the contraband made it to Iran, a country President Bush branded part of an “axis of evil.”
In that instance, a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran resumed business after his release from prison. He purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran from a U.S. company that had bought them in a Pentagon surplus sale. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, speaking on condition of anonymity, say those parts made it to Iran.
By
Anonymous, at 1:30 PM
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