Send Stimson Packing

What is going on in the Department of Defense, and why is Charles D. Stimson still employed there?

Last week, Stimson, a Navy lawyer and the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, whined loudly about the fact that many large and prominent firms are providing pro bono legal defenses to prisoners at Guatanemo Bay. He mused that corporate clients should take their accounts from such firms. So did the newspaper of record for the military-industrial complex, a.k.a., The Wall Street Journal.

Let me be blunt: Stimson's viewpoint is as inimical to American values as that of any man detained at Guatanemo. Why not lock Stimson up at Guatanemo for a therapeutic month or so?

A defense department officials spoke on condition of anonymity to The New York Times, saying Stimson's views were not those of the department. Why the anonymity? Is the defense department ashamed of the values it defends? All at once the Second Amendment looks good to me. Who will protect the people from goose-stepping jackasses in uniform?

I am reminded all at once of the allegory of the metals in Plato's Republic.   There were three metals in the souls of people. The golden soul possessed reason and the ability to govern. Mere bronze was fil only for menial tasks. Intermediate between gold and bronze were the silver-souled, those possessed of spirit but no vision of the good. Warriors are silver souled.

So let's give Stimson his due. No mere dross he. But unfit to govern and rule. He is a mere attack dog, a useful tool in the hands of a wise handler. But left alone, he is a mere vicious cur.

Let's repeat something worth reminding the defense department about: You and all the guns, bombs and war you can muster are merely a means to an end. The people don't serve you; you serve the people and their vision of liberty. That includes such core values as the right to counsel when detained.

One would think we would not need to remind a senior administration official of this during a prolongued war on terror. But it is so.

Sack Stimson. Send him packing and looking for a job at one of the firms fortunate enough to have the means to defend a man pro bono. The firms defending the detainees at Guatanemo serve the nation as well and as bravely as the men and women in uniform. Only a fool like Stimson forgets that.

Comments

[David]

If you are outraged by Stimson's comments, believe in habeas corpus, and want to repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006 check out:

projecthamad.org

Join the project!

[rick smith]

STIMSON.

tell me how did such an idiot like yourself obtain a high profile government job.

or is that just the way it is in washington (i dont think thats entirely true)

moron!

[S. COTUS]

Look, he was trying to speak to a different audience. First of all, he is a lawyer. But he rarely gives public interviews. He was trying to play to non-lawyers outside the beltway (a waste of time, if you ask me), and he, in his enthusiasm, went too far. Anyway, his comments were reprehensible.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that people in your group actually know what the MCA does, or what the various live legal arguments against it are, so I think it might not be too effective.

[mythago]

S., then he is too stupid to serve in his office, if he thinks he can get away with making foolish remarks to 'non-lawyers outside the beltway' and nobody else will find out.