Legal Idiocy and the War on Terror
Joseph Margulies is an attorney with the MacArthur Justice Center and an Associate Clinical Professor at Northwestern University Law School in Chicago. He was lead counsel in Rasul v. Bush, involving the detentions at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Station, and in Habib v. Bush, involving the rendition of Mamdouh Habib from Pakistan to Egypt. He is also the author of Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power (Simon and Schuster 2006), and has won numerous awards for his work since 9/11.
This guy is simply wonderful and certainly knows what he is talking about. His speech is at several points very moving and he makes some points which are simply staggering. For example (1) only 5% of the persons detained at Guantanamo were detained by Americans, the vast majority were handed over by bounty hunters, for life changing amounts of money promised by the US. (2) The youngest person detained at Guantanamo is a mere ten years old. (3) To this day the United States have yet to call it's first witness in any enemy combatant case worldwide, so far all evidence is hearsay. (4) Since 9-11 the US have, for the first time in their history, "disappeared" persons within their system.
On a positive note, he ends by stating that the US will one day reclaim it's moral authority, the only question is how many pages have to be turned until the US gets to that point.
His speech is about an hour long, but well worth the investment.
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three:
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Part Six:
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