This has to be the non-surprise of the week: Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, the Navy lawyer who led the recent successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration's military tribunals for Guantánamo detainees, has been passed over for promotion to full commander and will have to leave the military. The military claims there is no connection between its decision and Swift's defense of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni and alleged al-Qaeda member who was accused of being Osama bin Laden's driver. Yet the Navy lost no time in exacting retribution. Its decision on Swift came about two weeks after the Supreme Court sided with him and against the White House. And the decision was made despite a report from his supervisor saying he served with distinction. "Charlie has obviously done an exceptional job, a really extraordinary job," said Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, the Pentagon's chief defense counsel for military commissions. Sullivan added that it was "quite a coincidence" that Swift was passed over for a promotion "within two weeks of the Supreme Court opinion." A coincidence indeed! The 44-year-old lawyer will be forced to retire from the armed services in March or April under the military's "up or out" promotion system. Swift said he would have defended Hamdan even if he had known it would cut short his Navy career. He added that he plans to continue defending Hamdan as a civilian. The 36-year-old Hamdan was captured along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan while fleeing the US invasion that was a response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Hamdan has acknowledged that bin Laden paid him $200 a month as his driver on a Kandahar farm, but he says he never joined al-Qaeda or engaged in military fighting. With Swift's help, Hamdan turned to civilian courts to challenge the constitutionality of his war-crimes trial, a case that eventually led the Supreme Court to rule that President Bush had outstripped his authority when he created ad hoc military tribunals for Guantánamo Bay prisoners. By William Fisher http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101206R.shtml A true American Patriot! God bless Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift
