Guantanamo prosecutor who quit had 'grave misgivings' about fairness

Guantanamo prosecutor who quit had 'grave misgivings' about fairness

www.latimes.com

WASHINGTON -- Darrel J. Vandeveld was in despair. The hard-nosed lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, a self-described conformist praised by his superiors for his bravery in Iraq, had lost faith in the Guantanamo Bay war crimes tribunals in which he was a prosecutor.

His work was top secret, making it impossible to talk to family or friends. So the devout Catholic -- working away from home -- contacted a priest online.

Even if he had no doubt about the guilt of the accused, he wrote in an August e-mail, "I am beginning to have grave misgivings about what I am doing, and what we are doing as a country. . . .

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[edit on 13-10-2008 by grover]

Whether you agree with this man or not you have to admire him for being concerned about fairness and following his conscious.

One of the things that supposed to make the United States different is our system is built upon fair and reasonable laws... it doesn't always happen that way... but there is habius corpus and due process under the law. No where in the constituition does it say that the laws are to be applied selectively and that is exactly what the bush minor administration did with setting up Gitmo (a horrid place even without the prison, I know I've been there) and the tribunals...

... and this man had the decency to refuse to play along with bad rules.

Ya gotta admire that.

www.latimes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)