Saturday, May 22, 2004
Allan Dershowitz
Felix Frankfurter Professor at Law
Harvard Law School
1563 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA o2138
Dear Mr. Dershowitz,
Do you think you’ll represent Our President if He goes on trial for war crimes?
I hope you do. You’re the only one who can get Him off! Remember when you were on the “Dream Team” that got O.J. Simpson off? That was a miracle! Remember when Claus von Bulow put his wife into a coma and you got him off? They even made a movie about you! It just goes to show--in America, you’re innocent until unable to afford Allan Dershowitz!
You once said, "I have only one agenda: I want to win. I will try, by every fair and legal means, to get my client off--without regard to the consequences." You also said, "almost all of my clients have been guilty.”
That is why you have to defend Our President when the investigators catch up to Him. Our country depends on you! Show everybody that the Abu Ghraib tortures were just the work of seven soldiers at the bottom of the chain of command! Bad apples!
Also, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski. She was a bad apple too! Why didn’t she stop them? Maybe it was because Major General Geoffrey Miller had orders to “Gitmo-ize” Abu Ghraib and he told Karpinski to get out of his way. His orders were to “review current Iraqi Theatre ability to rapidly exploit internees for actionable intelligence.”
I know you’re a big-time fancy-pants lawyer, but even you have to be in awe of the way those guys talk!
Anyway, as close as I can tell, Miller’s orders to “rapidly exploit internees for actionable intelligence” means to beat the snot out of them til they say whatever you want to hear. So I guess Maj. Gen. Miller is a bad apple. But wait a minute! Who gave him those orders? Who told Miller to “Gitmo-ize” Abu Ghraib?
Maybe it was Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez. Now we’re getting somewhere! Not only that, but one of the bad apples says Sanchez personally watched the “harsh techniques.” Not only that, but the Red Cross reported the abuse to camp commanders last May! Do you know what the prison officials said? They said it’s “part of the process.”
Now we’re climbing way up the food chain! Sanchez is a bad apple! But wait! The Red Cross was so upset about being sent home and told not to come back without an appointment, they went straight to the top! Colin Powell! Now there’s a guy who stands up for what’s right! He was furious! He was so mad, his spokesman said, “When such information came to us...we certainly took note of the information.” When Powell gets mad, you just have to ride it out til he calms down.
Wolfowitz got briefed too. Here’s what he said: “No mention was made of any specific allegations (italics mine) of abuse or mistreatment of prisoners at any of the facilities housing detainees inside Iraq." For a lawyer, it must be like an artist looking at a Picasso!
So I know you must be thinking, the buck stops here. But no! Rumsfeld got those Red Cross reports too, in May or January or February, and he decided to look into it as soon as the pictures came out.
Also, there are reports that it was Rumsfeld who told Miller to Gitmo-ize Abu Ghraib. Or maybe it was Steve Cambone. Steve Cambone is Rumsfeld’s Under-Secretary of Defense who walks on coals for Rumsfeld, and decided it would be a good idea to bring in private contractors and military intelligence to do the interrogating because the MP’s were just a bunch of “recycled hillbillies from Cumberland Maryland” who didn’t know anything about “softening up” prisoners.
It’s all getting kind of fuzzy now, but I’ve gotten this far: Miller and Cambone answer to Rumsfeld who answers to...wait a minute. Before we talk about who Rumsfeld answers to, let’s talk about Alberto Gonzalez. He’s Our President’s lawyer. Back around 9/11 when all this started, Gonzalez told Our President that he thought the Geneva Convention was “quaint” and “obsolete.” Your a lawyer--what’s your opinion about that? Never mind--don’t tell me. I can’t afford the bill.
So now we’ve got Our President thinking the Geneva Convention is quaint and obsolete, and deciding to not give POW status to the Gitmo prisoners. And He heard those Red Cross reports too, and He told somebody to look into it immediately after those pictures came out. So? What’s your point? What do we have? Nothing! Not one shred of evidence! It’s nobody’s fault! All we have are insinuations and inuendos and Democrats playing politics in an election year and a bunch of generals and cabinet members pointing their index fingers in all directions and a few bad apples at the bottom of the food chain!
Whew! That’s too much information for my little brain to sort out. But that’s why you’re the big-time lawyer who’s on Larry King more often than Larry King! It’s your job. And this will be the biggest case of your career! This will make your O.J. Simpson gig look like ambulance chasing! I’m so glad you’re going to defend Our President and help keep the world safe for Democracy. You can do it! You’re the Greatest Lawyer of All Time! You could sell a side of beef to a vegan!
Besides, Our President needs to be represented by somebody who’s on the same page. And you are! Remember when you said the president should be allowed to issue “torture warrants?” Remember when you said:
“We should never under any circumstances allow low-level people to administer torture. If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court Justice.”
There you go! Keep these decisions out of the hands of low-level bad apples! Let Our President decide! Or maybe Scalia.
By the way, did you hear God told Pat Robertson that Our President is going to get re-elected? If He does, I hear He wants to nominate Alberto Gonzalez to the Supreme Court. Maybe Gonzalez could issue the warrant. He knows all about that stuff.
Sincerely,
Carl Estrada