You Can't Make This Shit Up! Leading the Fight for the Rule of Law in the Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions

<p>I was an active-duty Army JAG for 20 years. When I retired in 2006 I was approached</p><p>to work as Principal Deputy Chief Defense Counsel for the Military Commissions Defense</p><p>Organization (MCDO): the team defending people held at Guantánamo Bay in the Bush</p><p>administration's War on Terror. In many senses the military commissions created in the</p><p>aftermath of 9/11 were the antithesis of good national and international law designed to allow the</p><p>use of evidence obtained from torture to prosecute and convict detainees.</p><p></p><p>At MCDO truth was (and is) stranger than fiction; we would often invoke the mantra You</p><p>can't make this shit up! There is another meaning to this phrase: when the Bush administration</p><p>decided to create (make up) the GTMO military commissions and not to use established systems</p><p>of justice they were asking for trouble. It is impossible to create a new system of justice on the</p><p>fly particularly one created to hide illegal practices (redactions on 20 pages of the memoir were</p><p>required by CIA and DOD censors.) Innumerable problems and obstacles were bound to occur.</p><p></p><p>This insider account of the work of MCDO through the Hicks Hamdan Khadr al Bahlul and</p><p>Jawad trials among others and the al Nashiri and 9/11 death penalty cases offers unique</p><p>insights into the often dark world MCDO attorneys were forced to navigate-including being</p><p>investigated by the FBI (led by Special Counsel Pat Fitzgerald) for alleged misuse of classified</p><p>materials. There was so much at stake: nothing less than the rule of law. Dark humor helped us not</p><p>only survive but thrive-while scarred. Think a legal M*A*S*H. You really can't make this shit up!</p>