Chris Dodd for President

Today, Senator Chris Dodd received the endorsement of Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, attorney in the historic Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case before the Supreme Court. That case found the military commission established by President Bush was illegal because it was not authorized by Congress and violated both US military law and the Geneva Conventions. Swift and Dodd spoke yesterday before the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council on the importance of the rule of law to our national security.

"I'm proud to endorse Senator Dodd because before it was popular, Senator Dodd fought for the rule of law. He understands that the honor of our military is at stake, that this is the right foreign policy that will win, and that in the end, our military is about our values. Our foreign policy must be about our values, or we have nothing."

Said Dodd, "I'm grateful to receive the endorsement of Lt. Cmdr. Swift - a true patriot who helped prove that the President cannot overturn the rule of law and establish his own system of justice. At a time when American men and women in uniform are making unbelievable sacrifices, Americans understand that our nation's moral authority isn't incidental to our security - but rather its very foundation. Having Lt. Cmdr. Swift's support is another step toward restoring the Constitution this President has trampled on."

Lt. Commander Swift is a retired JAG attorney. He was the military attorney for Salim Ahmed Hamdan and petitioned his writ of habeas corpus all the way to the Supreme Court, challenging the military commission established to try Hamdan. The Supreme Court found that the military commission was illegal and violated both the Geneva Conventions and U.S. military law. The case, Hamdan v Rumsfeld, was a landmark in the effort to ensure that the Bush administration follow the law, even when handling terrorism suspects.

Thank you, Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, for that introduction and for all you’ve done. As the Navy JAG officer who helped win one of the most important Supreme Court cases in recent memory, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, you helped prove that the President cannot overturn the rule of law and establish his own system of justice.

I also want to thank you for calling my attention to some wonderful words from George Marshall, architect of the D-Day invasion, and namesake of the Marshall Plan. Here’s what he said:

“The United States abides by the laws of war….Wanton killing, torture, cruelty, or the workings of unusual hardship on enemy prisoners or populations is not justified under any circumstances. Likewise respect for the reign of law…is expected to follow the flag wherever it goes.”

George Marshall spoke those words in the middle of last century; but they could have been spoken at any time in our history.

Those words sum up a founding insight: that the rule of law extends even to those enemies we most despise; that our Constitution’s principles are transcendent; that in America, right makes might.

With the law following our flag, we threw down tyrants and oppressors for two centuries; we rid the world of Nazism and Soviet communism; we proved that great strength can serve great virtue.

America was a light to the world, and our adherence to the rule of law the foundation of our security for the last half of the 20th century.

Today, in the early years of the 21st century, our defining question is a very simple one:

Can we defend America if we fail to defend our Constitution and the rule of law?

That’s not a loaded question—there are a good number of Americans who say the answer is Yes.

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Today at 5:30pm Eastern we'll be live streaming a discussion of an event on the Rule of Law in U.S. National Security and Foreign Policy with Chris Dodd and Lt. Commander Charles Swift. The event is taking place in Iowa City, Iowa.

Lt. Commander Swift is a JAG attorney. He was the attorney for Salim Ahmed Hamdan and petitioned his writ of habeas corpus all the way to the Supreme Court, challenging the military commission that held Hamdan. The Supreme Court found that the military commission was illegal and violated the Geneva Conventions. The case, Hamdan v Rumsfeld, was a landmark in the effort to ensure that the Bush administration follow the law, even when handling terrorism suspects.

Tune at 5:30pm Eastern to watch the whole event, which will run about an hour long.

SCOTUSblog reports on the Supreme Court's December case load:

The Supreme Court will hear the two consolidated cases testing the legal rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees on Wednesday, Dec. 5, at 10 a.m. — the only case scheduled for that day.
...
Wednesday, Dec. 5

* Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. U.S. (06-1196) — whether Guantanamo Bay detainees have a constitutional or common law right to challenge their detention through habeas claims in U.S. federal courts (consolidated, one hour hearing).

In June Senator Dodd said this on giving habeas rights to Guantanamo Bay detainees:

[W]e cannot wait for the next President to restore our moral authority - we have to restore our standing in the world by having the conviction to stand up to this President now. This begins with closing the prisons at Guantanamo Bay and restoring Habeas Corpus rights to those in our custody.

We'll be looking forward to the Supreme Court hearing these cases. Stay tuned for further updates.

Blogger Amanda Marcotte writes about fear:

Fear and its counterpart anger are misunderstood things. They can cripple you or they can empower you. The best way to interpret the famous FDR quote “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, in my opinion at least, is that we should fear the potential of fear to cripple our will and make us hide in our homes, unable to stand up to the things that we should fear enough to fight. When the fascists march down your street, does your fear make you submit in the weak hopes it won’t be so bad or do you fear for your way of life and hit the streets to fight back?

It's very hard for me to separate my assessment of where this week's debates in the Senate on restoring habeas corpus and ending the war in Iraq without having recourse to explain the Republican opposition to both of these noble goals through their own fear. Would we be put to the false choice of liberties versus security if the question was not premised in fear? Would we continue to keep our troop amidst Iraq's civil war if the ill-conceived myth of "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" had not created a fearful climate necessitating preventive war?

Tragically the fearful reaction of President Bush and his Republican cohorts is one that, in the end, makes us less safe, less secure, and less respected in the global community.

But that does not mean that there are not things that we need fear in the world today.

We should be afraid of those who would surrender basic liberties in the name of security. What's worse, we should be afraid of the vocal minority who vote out of step with the will of the public that they are tasked to represent. A public who does not want to lose their rights and a public that wants to restore the rights that have already been surrendered under the Bush administration with assistance from a majority of the Republican caucus.

We should be afraid of what it means that a Democratic Presidential candidate must focus his candidacy around restoring the Constitution. We should be even more afraid of what would happen to the rule of law and to the sanctity of our Constitution if Chris Dodd was not making restoring the Constitution a central cause in his campaign for the presidency.

We should be afraid that, yet again, the Republican minority will ignore the will of the American public and block any legislation that would set a firm deadline to end the war in Iraq and enforce that deadline through the congressional power of the purse. Americans want to bring the troops home -- but their will has not been enacted in Congress.

We should recognize these fears, but we will not stop acting on our convictions.

Senator Dodd has confronted this issues head-on. By leading the fight to restore habeas corpus. By leading with clarity and distinction on how he will vote on Iraq legislation, stating early that he will not vote for Iraq funding measures that did not include a firm, enforceable deadline for withdrawal. By calling on his colleagues to do the same.

And standing along side this fight are thousands upon thousands of Americans who followed his lead and called their Senators, asking them to restore habeas corpus and to end the Iraq war. We see things that we should be fearful of and we confront them. Without action, we cannot hope to restore the Constitution and we cannot expect to end the war in Iraq.

Chris Dodd won't back down. Will you continue to stand by him? Will you ask your family, friends, and neighbors to join us in this fight to end the war in Iraq and to restore the Constitution of the United States of America? Will you make a donation to Dodd's campaign? Will you volunteer to help keep our campaign moving forward?