Key Marine lawyer resigns LOUDLY, cites military court injustices as his reason -- ATC/NPR

I just heard this explosive and patriotic story on "All Things Considered" and I had to pull into Kinko's to post the story and link. Colby Vokey is a real American hero, because he is resigning the Marine Corps over what he considers un-American (and criminally culpable) behavior by the military under George Bush. Go to the link below and read the story or turn on "All Things Considered" NOW.

This afternoon, I felt another bright, warm ray of hope for this country. Thank you, Colby Vokey, for speaking up and for defending America from the Bush cartel.
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All Things Considered, October 30, 2007 · By all accounts, Colby Vokey is a model officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. He helped command an artillery unit in Kuwait during the Gulf War in 1991. For the past four years, Vokey has served as chief of all the Corps' defense lawyers in the western United States — and he's played a key role in some of the military's most sensitive legal issues, including the murder investigation in Haditha, Iraq, and in the debate about detainees at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

"Colby Vokey?" muses retired Col. Jane Siegel "Integrity almost seems like a word too small to describe him." Says Lt. Col. Matthew Cord, "He's just one of the best."

So when Vokey announced recently that he wanted to leave the Corps, it said something troubling about the military system of justice that he's served for almost 20 years. Vokey charges that some commanders and officials in the Bush administration have abused the system of justice, and he's going to retire from the Corps May 1, 2008.

People who know him say that privately, Vokey has acknowledged he is "angry" and "bitter." Publicly, Vokey describes himself as "fed up. I think changes to the system are well-overdue," he told NPR. "And it's a little frustrating when you see problems are highlighted time and time and again."


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15783244

Colby Vokey sounds like many soldiers now fighting in Iraq who say they defend our right to protest the war (and every other un-American and illegal act of the Bush cartel). My thanks to all of them.

Some people remember what this country stands for and what being a proud and brave American looks and sounds like. None of those people work in the White House.

Guantanamo Bay

The U.S. has imprisoned hundreds of "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay, in a military legal system that Vokey denounces as "horrific." Vokey saw the system first-hand, when he agreed two years ago to defend a teenager there who had been charged with murdering a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan. Vokey said he knew the case would be difficult, but he discovered that the legal system at Guantanamo is a "sham."

Vokey said the military staff constantly harassed him and interfered with his defense work by making it difficult even to meet with his client or show his client the government's evidence against him. The teenager confessed to killing the soldier, but he told Vokey he confessed after being shackled for hours in excruciating positions and bombarded by screeching music and flashing lights.

FBI agents have reported seeing detainees treated in similar ways, and investigators at human rights groups have reported evidence suggesting that detainees are routinely abused.

Vokey calls the system "disgraceful."

have been some of the most outspoken critics of Bush and the whole rendition/GITMO thing. They are honorable men trying to do the right thing for their clients and being hamstrung right and left from the Bushies.

Kudo to Colby Vokey and the others how have had the courage to speak out.

Vokey described defending a 15 year old imprisoned in Gitmo who confessed to killing an American soldier, but only after weeks of torture. Part of that torture involved being shackled hands to feet and then chained to the floor. The 15 year old boy kept falling over and the jailers kept raising him back up to an excruciating position.

After six hours of this torture, the young boy pissed himself. The jailers came back in, poured Pine Sol on the puddle of urine and then used the boy himself as the washrag to soak up the urine and Pine Sol. He was then left shackled in the same position, soaked in urine and disinfectant.

Ah yes, now that's the America I know and love (most decidedly NOT).

:dem:

everyone -- go listen.

Vokey was fired before he resigned. What happened and the reaction of his fellow Marine attorneys:
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"Given that he (had spoken out in protest), Vokey said he was not completely surprised when an official at USMC headquarters called him recently to her office in Washington and fired him as chief of defense counsels in the western United States.

"Officials at the Corps would not give NPR an interview despite repeated requests.

"But when former Marine Corps lawyers heard about Vokey's firing, they were incensed. Siegel said Vokey's firing sent a chilling message that some officials don't want military lawyers to defend the Constitution too vigorously. 'I believe that Colby Vokey was pulled out of his position because he's doing too good a job,' Siegel said. "I think that the people in Washington, D.C., don't like that.'

"After Siegel and other well-known lawyers wrote a blistering letter of protest about Vokey's firing and lobbied top commanders at Marine headquarters, officials backed down and reinstated him. But critics say the Corps is just doing damage control because officials know that Vokey is planning to leave on his own."

The best example of the embodiment of cognitive dissonance these days is a patriotic Bush supporter.

coming out during this evil regime's reign of terror, I am glad they are waking up, but feel sad for the way they must be feeling.

It sure hurts to be suckered, used and dismissed. :(

:hi: