Blame... What could be more 'patriotic'?
Lawyer who helped detainee is forced to retire
By Carol Rosenberg
Miami Herald
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/15709464.htm?
NEWARK, N.J. - The Navy lawyer who took the Guantánamo Bay case of Osama
bin Laden's driver to the U.S. Supreme Court -- and won -- has been
passed over for promotion by the Pentagon and must soon leave the military.
Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, said last week that he received word that
he had been denied a promotion to commander this summer -- about two
weeks after the Supreme Court sided against the White House and with his
client, a Yemeni captive at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
Under the military's ``up or out'' promotion system, Swift will retire
in March or April, closing out a 20-year career of military service.
A Pentagon appointee, Swift embraced the alleged Al-Qaida's
sympathizer's defense with a classic defense lawyer's zeal -- casting
his captive client as an innocent victim in the dungeon of King George,
a startling analogy for the attorney whose commander in chief is
President George Bush.
``It was a pleasure to serve,'' said Swift, who added that he would
defend Salim Hamdan all over again, even if he knew he would have to
leave the Navy earlier than he wanted.
``All I ever wanted was to make a difference -- and in that sense I
think my career and personal satisfaction has been beyond my dreams,''
he said.
Swift, a University of Seattle Law School graduate, also said he would
continue to defend Hamdan as a civilian. The Seattle law firm of Perkins
Coie, which provided pro bono legal work in Hamdan's habeas corpus
petition, has agreed to support Swift's defense of Hamdan in civilian
life, he said.
Hamdan, 36, who has only a fourth-grade education, was captured along
the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan while fleeing the U.S.
invasion of Afghanistan, launched in reprisal for the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks. He admits to working as bin Laden's $200-a-month driver on a
Kandahar farm, but said he never joined Al-Qaida and never fought anyone.
Still at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as an ``enemy combatant,'' Hamdan halted
his war-crimes trial by challenging the format's constitutionality
through civilian courts. The justices ruled in June that Bush
overstepped his constitutional authority by creating ad-hoc military
tribunals for prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, sending the Pentagon back to
the drawing board for the trials.
In the end, it developed a system very similar to those struck down,
setting the stage for a likely new challenge this session.
In the opinion of Washington, D.C., attorney Eugene Fidell, president of
the National Institute of Military Justice, Swift was ``a no-brainer for
promotion,'' given his devotion to the Navy, the law and his client.
``He brought real credit to the Navy,'' Fidell said. ``It's too bad that
it's unrequited love.''
In June, the prestigious National Law Journal listed Swift among the
nation's top 100 lawyers, with such legal luminaries as former Bush
administration Solicitor General Theodore Olson, 66; Stanford Law
constitutional law expert Kathleen Sullivan, 50; and former Bush
campaign recount attorney Fred H. Bartlit, 73.
Swift's supervisor, the Pentagon's chief defense counsel for military
commissions, said the career Navy officer had served with distinction.
``Charlie has obviously done an exceptional job, a really extraordinary
job,'' said Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, a former American Civil
Liberties Union attorney, calling it ``quite a coincidence'' that the
Navy promotion board passed on promoting Swift ``within two weeks of the
Supreme Court opinion.''
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