It’s tempting to say that Charles Swift has been swift-boated. But, then again, what has happened with Navy Lt. Cmdr. Swift is something that has been a hallmark of the George Bush Presidential Agenda since 2000, not a 2004 invention for use against John Kerry. That is, harm those who won’t drink the Bush Kool-Aid, damage and abuse those whose loyalty is to their country and the the United States Constitution, not to a morally deficient political figure.
Charles Swift, like Captain Ian Fishback, Spec. Joseph Darby, Bunnatine Greenhouse and others before him, possesses a functioning moral compass and is guided by such, unlike the Bush-aholics and their faux Christian leader, who have taken moral relativism to depths heretofore unknown.
This country needs the services of more Charles Swifts, people who understand personal conduct is guided by ethics and principles, not the bastardized Bush version of the Ten Commandments.
Guantanamo defense lawyer forced to retire by Navy
By Carol Rosenberg
McClatchy Newspapers
Oct. 07, 2006
NEWARK, N.J. – The Navy lawyer who took the Guantanamo case of Osama bin Laden’s driver to the U.S. Supreme Court – and won – has been passed over for promotion by the Pentagon and must soon leave the military.
Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, said last week he received word that he had been denied a promotion to full-blown Navy commander this summer – “about two weeks after” the Supreme Court sided against the White House and with his client, a Yemeni captive at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
Under the military’s “up or out” promotion system, Swift will retire in March or April, closing out a 20-year career of military service.
A Pentagon appointee, Swift embraced the alleged al-Qaida’s sympathizer’s defense with a classic defense lawyer’s zeal – casting his captive client as an innocent victim in the dungeon of King George, a startling analogy for the attorney whose commander-in-chief is President George Bush.
He wore Navy whites to his client’s war-crimes tribunal at Guantanamo, dress blues to challenge the administration on the steps of the Supreme Court and turned up last week at a symposium at Seton Hall Law School in more sober, workaday khakis.
“It was a pleasure to serve,” said Swift, who added that he would defend Salim Hamdan all over again, even if he knew he would have to leave the Navy earlier than he wanted.
“All I ever wanted was to make a difference – and in that sense I think my career and personal satisfaction has been beyond my dreams,” he said.
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