Profiles in Courage

Major Jason Wright

There may have been a little hubris involved (the possibility that Major Wright would have been taken off a hig and I don't by any means know that it was.

Last week, Maj. Jason Wright — one of the lawyers defending [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks] — resigned from the Army. He has accused the U.S. government of "abhorrent leadership" on human rights and due process guarantees and says it is crafting a "show trial."

[...]

His former client is one of six "high-value detainees" being prosecuted at Guantanamo for offenses that could carry the death penalty.

"All six of these men have been tortured by the U.S. government," he says.

Wright says Mohammed in particular has faced a level of torture "beyond comprehension." He says his client was waterboarded by the CIA 183 times and subjected to over a week of sleep deprivation; there were threats that his family would be killed. "And those are just the declassified facts that I'm able to actually speak about," Wright says.

[...]

"The 'original sin' being the fact that the CIA tortured these men and that they've gone to extraordinary lengths to try to keep that completely hidden from public view," Wright says. "So the statute that Congress passed has a number of protections to ensure that no information about the U.S. torture program will ever come out."

[...]

"Leave aside our constitutional principles — which we should try to uphold irrespective of who the defendant may be — the Constitution has been completely stepped on throughout this entire process," he says.

[...]

Wright says it doesn't matter what happens at trial; the government likely won't release the defendants even if they are acquitted.

[...]

Earlier this year, the Army instructed Wright to leave the team in order to complete a required graduate course with his promotion from Captain to Major. The course can be deferred for a variety of reasons; Wright had already deferred once. But his latest request for a deferral was denied without explanation.

"So really I only had two choices," he says. "I could either accept and voluntarily leave my own self from the case and my obligations to my client. Or I could refuse the orders."

He decided would be an ethical violation to abandon his client voluntarily, so he refused the orders. "And when you refuse the orders, you have to resign from the Army," he says.

[...]

NPR asked the Pentagon to comment on Wright's interview. A spokesman from the Army wrote:

"The Judge Advocate General denied the second deferral request because a suitable and competent military defense attorney replacement was available, Major Wright was not the lead or sole counsel, and it ensured Major Wright remained professionally competent and competitive for promotion."

And a spokesman for the military commissions also disputes Wright's characterization of the commission, including his allegations of planted listening devices. He wrote:

"The prosecution has never listened to a single attorney-client communication, and no entity of the U.S. government is listening to, monitoring, or recording attorney-client communications at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay."

  NPR

The defense in the 9/11 case has alleged clandestine government interference with legal proceedings. Past hearings at Guantanamo have shown that listening devices were planted in rooms where lawyers and prisoners met, and that someone outside the court had a kill switch that cut the closed-circuit broadcast feed of the trial when secret CIA prisons were mentioned. In addition, the defense has alleged spying in the case, claiming the FBI propositioned a defense team security officer to be a confidential informant.

  RT

I would suggest that now Major Wright should turn whistleblower and reveal those torture tactics he has been forbidden to discuss, but I don't think the American public would care enough for it to make any difference, and it would further harm Major Wright.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.