Undermining Military Justice

[L. Coyote]

Undermining Military Justice
BY Scott Horton - Dec 11, 2007 - http://harpers.org/archive/2007/12/hbc-90001896

It’s a cliché to say that “military justice is to justice as military music is to music.” It’s also far from fair to the American military. Over the last fifty years, the American military justice model evolved into something that—while always short of perfection, as all human works—nevertheless accurately reflects the basic values of a democratic society. In fact, the American court-martial system has long been something that Americans could be proud of. And more than anything this is thanks to the diligent work and professionalism of the uniformed lawyers who make that system work, the JAG corps.

Within two years of its arrival in Washington, the Bush Administration began to take a crow bar to the American military justice system. They wanted a new process in Guantánamo, and they had no position for justice in it. And they wanted the military lawyers to be their frontmen. As a senior JAG officer explained to me in West Point this fall: “They never asked us for our advice on how to do this. They instructed us what to do. And we did the best we could to give their designs at least some modicum of justice. But nobody is happy with the product.”

In fact over the last years we have seen a steady parade of JAG officers on the public stage protesting what has been done—a demolition derby of traditional values and procedures. “It’s destroying our reputation. Why should we be quiet about this? We are the guardians of an important legacy. Don’t we have a duty to that legacy?” Now I know a good many of these men and women, and they are not a bunch of wild-eyed Bill Kuenstlers in uniform. They are mostly conservative Republicans. And what propels them is that very conservatism–respect for traditional values.

Those who have spoken have been the TJAGs—the seniormost lawyers in each service branch, .............

[L. Coyote]

1. "series of convictions to occur to be lined up with the 2008 election cycle"

"Like a “loyal Bushie” lawyer, Haynes was directing a series of convictions to occur to be lined up with the 2008 election cycle."