Op-Ed: Obama and Guantanamo - Did anyone think of the lawyers?
Written by Ham B. Jäger

After reading about President Obama's orders this week to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and suspend all legal proceedings against its inhabitants, I felt that it was my duty as both a concerned citizen and legal professional to voice my disappointment. Being as this was his very first act as President, I must say that I am deeply distressed about the direction this signals for the new administration. More to the point, it displays a hurtful lack of consideration to those in my profession, doubly surprising given the President’s own background in law.

In the current economic climate, lawyers across the board are suffering pitiably. With real estate transfers and corporate acquisitions grinding to a halt, the need for contract lawyers is drying up. With so many manual laborers out of work, soaring fuel prices curtailing automobile travel, and the general spirit of hope and goodwill pervading the President’s inauguration, my own specialization of personal injury law has suffered a similarly tragic blow.

Despite our trials and tribulations, those in the field of law have met with surprisingly little sympathy. Where is the bailout package for the law firm that so recently notarized your zero-down mortgage? Whither the handout for that sharp little man who oversaw your bankruptcy claim? I ask you, with what gratitude has the legal community been rewarded for our patriotism in acquiescing to the needs of homeland security? Alas, we lawyers have suffered the diminishment of our disposable incomes in stoic silence.

Even so, I find I cannot remain quiet as I witness this latest slight to the everyday heroes of the courtroom. Unjust indeed are these suspensions to those particular lawyers who have toiled so desperately to wheedle a defensible case out of the circumstances surrounding the Guantanamo trials. Far more disheartening, however, is the fact that in shutting down Guantanamo, we will be abandoning a huge opportunity for the future of law.

With all of the difficulties inherent in the legal prosecution of combatants, every single detainee's case has the potential to employ a host of legal professionals for literally years. The case of Guantanamo detainee and Canadian citizen, Omar Khadr, is particularly illustrative of the potential for the burgeoning field of Combatant Law. Now, as a lawyer myself, I’m well acquainted with legal flim-flammery and all the technical, niggling little details it can entail, so I’m just going to focus on the bigger picture here.

Let’s not get bogged down in discussions of whether or not a 15 year old boy in a warzone constitutes a ‘child soldier’. Forget about those who attack the Military Commissions Act's definition of Khadr as an ‘Unlawful Enemy Combatant’ as being arbitrary or a case of ex post facto law. I’m not even concerned with the circumstances surrounding his detention and interrogation. We’ve proven over the last seven years that all such details can be surmounted given sufficient political will on the one hand and public indifference on the other. Let’s just focus on two of the charges laid against him.

Khadr is charged with murder and attempted murder related to the throwing of a hand grenade that took the life of Sgt. Christopher Speer on July 27, 2002. The fact of Sgt. Speer’s death is indisputably tragic and I mean no disrespect to him or his family. Khadr was captured after a firefight in an Afghani village during which there was an exchange of gunfire and grenades by both sides. During the fight, Khadr sustained shrapnel wounds and multiple gunshots.

So, basically this guy is being charged for throwing a hand grenade in the middle of a battle, during the course of which he himself was injured. Now we’re not talking about shooting civilians or surrendering soldiers here. We’re charging a soldier for attacking an enemy soldier during a battle between two armed groups. My God, think of the implications. Think of the precedent this sets! Above all, think of the business opportunities for down-on-their-luck lawyers! Fantastic!

If the prosecution succeeds here, what exactly is to stop anyone on the losing end of any battle from being charged with attempted murder? This opens up the potential for literally thousands of trial cases from the war in Afghanistan alone! We'll need legions of lawyers, judges, aids, and researchers to handle them all, creating thousands of desperately needed jobs. And that's just for one war! Finally, a renewable industry that can't be outsourced.

For that matter, why stop at criminal prosecution? For captured combatants from wealthy families, we could issue a corresponding civil suit! It’s not like the practice of ransoming captured soldiers is without precedent. After all, historical records from the Medieval period are chock full of such cases. Everyone involved could take a cut and we’d help finance the war effort to boot. With this added bonus, the state might even come close to recouping the costs of a trial.

At the same time, we’d be supplying our troops on the front line with a potent psychological weapon. Anyone we faced on the battlefield would be given serious pause before raising a weapon as they considered the legal ramifications. After all, dying from a gunshot wound lasts for a few seconds or maybe a couple of minutes, but lawyers can take years to finish tearing you apart.

Best of all, Combatant Lawyers can be proactive in securing new cases. With personal injury law, I can only sit on my hands glumly waiting for someone to go and hurt themselves. With Combatant Law, I can help to ensure my livelihood every time I vote or write my political representative. Nobody can say what conflicts the future will hold, but we can all lend a helping hand!

Oh sure, I know what the skeptics out there are already thinking. That this is a special case involving a terrorist fighting on behalf of an unrecognized government. But then what exactly constitutes a legitimate government? As near as I can tell, it’s pretty much whoever our own government says is one. There’s no law that I’m aware of, international or domestic, that forces any one group of people to recognize any other as anything in particular. Besides, whether or not any of the detainees we bring to court are ever successfully prosecuted, one thing at least is certain: Lawyers like me will win every time.