Beware the Levin Amendment; Ex-Gitmo Prosecutor Says Obama Lost His Testicles in Fight to Close Guantanamo

Col. Morris Davis (ret. Air Force JAG) slams Obama for failing to close Guantanamo, says it “seems like a third Bush term”.  PBC opens with an alert about the “Levin Amendment”.

PBC ostarts the podcast with an alert about US Senate action to prevent  current or future presidents from trying non-citizen terrorrism suspects in US courts.  As Col. Davis notes in our conversation, the Congress has already banned the Pentagon from bringing Guantanamo prisoners to the US for trial; the latest efforts, including an amendment by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), would block the Justice Department from trying foreign terrorrism suspects, which by default forces the continuation of Gitmo and political show trials until repealed.

Col. Morris Davis recently gave a powerful interview to Jason Leopold of Truthout.org and he continues his outspoken candor in this exchange.  Col. Davis devoted 25 years of his career to military justice, and volunteered to serve at Guantanamo.  As chief prosecutor, he tells us that his Pentagon boss, William “Jim” Haynes who is now at Chevron, was shocked when Davis suggested there might be some acquittals from the military tribunals.  Davis talks about Obama’s promises as a candidate, and that as president, his testicles fell off after inauguration.  Davis gives his take on the case of Omar Khadr, the Canadian teenager accused of killing a US soldier, and the case of another Canadian, Maher Arar.  He also talks about the 3 Guantanamo prisoners whose deaths were exposed by Scott Horton in Harpers–he thinks they actually did kill themselves.  And we talk about Jonathan Stevenson, whose article in Harpers May 2011 (and PBC interview) said that our generals are running their commander in chief.  Stevenson recently joined the National Security Council to lead their Middle East desk, and we express hope that his critical thinking will change the groupthink inside the administration.

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