Acting U.S. Solicitor General Represented Osama Bin Laden’s Driver; Denied That Battle Against Terrorism Is A War
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/70428________________________
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(CNSNews.com) – Neal Katyal, who became the acting U.S. solicitor general when Elena Kagan was nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, previously served as the legal counsel of record for the man who worked as Osama bin Laden’s driver from February 1996 through November 2001. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who underwent training at an al Qaeda camp, was charged with transporting weapons to al Qaeda operatives.
The Hamden case culminated in the 2006 Supreme Court ruling that said the Bush administration’s military tribunals violated U.S. law and international conventions.
In one brief in the Hamden case, Katyal argued that the war on terrorism is not really a war. “That ‘war’ manifestly is not a war in any sense of the term against any nation state or indeed against any well defined enemy,” the brief said.
Debra Burlingame, a co-founder of the national security advocacy group Keep America Safe, said Katyal’s comments on terrorism are significant because they show Katyal doesn’t believe we are really in a war. “That message is not lost on the people we are trying to fight,” Burlingame told CNSNews.com.
Burlingame is the sister of Charles F. Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. She became an activist for tougher policy in the war on terror as the co-founder of “9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America” and as a director of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum Foundation at the World Trade Center.
Katyal is one of nine attorneys in the Justice Department who previously represented a Guantanamo detainee. That’s the bigger problem, Burlingame said.
“With respect to attorneys representing Gitmo detainees, Katyal is probably the best of the bunch as far as bona fides. It is alarming that the Obama administration has installed so many lawyers that represented Gitmo detainees,” Burlingame said. “He wasn’t just advocating the law, but he tried to advance a narrative (that) Hamdan was just a driver. This guy was transporting weapons aimed at American troops.” The military assigned Lt. Commander Charles Swift to serve as Hamden’s attorney. Katyal, then a Georgetown University law professor, volunteered his time to be the civilian counsel after Swift contacted him.
In a written answers to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 19, Elena Kagan said she “ceased performing the litigation responsibilities” of U.S. solicitor general after President Barack Obama nominated her to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court on May 10.
The role of the solicitor general is to represent the legal position of the United States government before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I informed the Supreme Court on May 17, 2010 that Neal Katyal, the Principal Deputy Solicitor General, would serve as Acting Solicitor General in all filings from the date of my nomination,” Kagan told the Judiciary Committee in her written answers. “Mr. Katyal also assumed responsibility for acting upon all appeal and other litigation recommendations at this time. I have continued to handle some routine administrative matters.”
In November 2009, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), a member of the Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to the Justice Department asking for the names of political appointees who – before joining the Justice Department -- had previously represented Guantanamo detainees.
In February, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich replied that nine Justice Department employees had represented Gitmo detainees, but he named only two of them, one of whom was Katyal.
“As your letter notes, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal previously represented one Guantanamo detainee,” Weich replied.
Weich's letter said Katyal was involved in the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri of Qatar, who pleaded guilty in April 2009 to giving material support to al Qaeda. He was arrested while studying at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill.
“At the (Justice) department, he has not worked on any Guantanamo detainee matters, but has participated in litigation involving detainees who continue to be detained at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan and in litigation involving al-Marri, who was detained on U.S. soil,” Weich wrote. “His participation in such litigation is fully consistent with advice he received from career department officials regarding his obligations under the Rules of Professional Conduct and other applicable rules.”
Katyal and Swift were awarded the 2007 Salem Award for Human Rights and Social Justice for their work on the Hamden case. The award is named for the Salem witch trials of the 1600s.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Hamdan was arrested in Afghanistan in late 2001 and transported to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. A military tribunal held its first pre-trial hearing for Hamden in August 2004. But in November 2004, a federal judge in Washington stopped the military trial and insisted that Hamdan was entitled to a hearing to determine whether he was a prisoner of war.
The defense attorneys – Katyal and Swift -- argued that Congress did not authorize the military tribunals; that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction because Hamdan was not charged with war crimes; and that Hamdan was only a chauffer and not involved in terrorism.
The case worked its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5-3 (Chief Justice John Roberts recused himself because as an appeals court judge he ruled with the government in this case) on June 29, 2006 that stated the military tribunals violate U.S. and international law.
The high court ruling did not free Hamdan but determined only that the current military prosecution system was not legal.
Congress responded by passing new, more specific rules for military tribunals. On July 21, 2008, the trial against Hamdan began in front of six military officers who heard 10 days of testimony. On Aug. 6, 2008, Hamdan was convicted of aiding terrorism but acquitted of conspiracy.
Nevertheless, the 2006 ruling was a significant case in challenging presidential authority regarding the war on terror.
In a Nov. 22, 2004 brief, Katyal and Swift argued that the war on terrorism is not a war.
“That ‘war’ manifestly is not a war in any sense of the term against any nation state or indeed against any well defined enemy, nor is it war with any defined or definable geographic arena of conflict, nor a war in which one can pinpoint a date when hostilities began, or means of determining when hostilities are at an end, and it most assuredly is not a war that was ever declared by Congress,” the brief said.
“In an undeclared war, unbounded by time, place or identity of the enemy, respondents have relied on legal precedents set during previous conventional wars in order to designate petitioner Hamdan an enemy combatant and to prefer war crimes charges.”
In a March 2006 brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, Katyal and Swift argued, “The president seeks not merely to detain temporarily, but to dispense life imprisonment and death thorough a judicial system of his own design. Anyone, anytime, may be swept into this system and forced to endure years of waiting before their cases are even heard.”
The March 2006 brief also noted that “the president already has the broad power to detain and try Hamdan – but not in the lawless, autocratic, ever-shifting way he seeks to do here. To fail to enforce these limits would be to allow a dangerous and unprecedented expansion of executive authority whose legal premise must be that the fight against terrorism justifies a reallocation of constitutional power.”
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Speechless.
And you guys wonder why i utterly detest obama, piss, shit, and pigs blood be upon him?
