The Hero of Guantanamo:

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, attorney for Yemeni Salim Ahmed Hamdan who worked as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden, speaks outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington June 29, 2006. The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down as unlawful the military tribunal system set up to try Guantanamo prisoners. REUTERS/Micah Walter (UNITED STATES)

"We can't be scared out of who we are."

That statement by Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, the military appointed defense attorney for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, is the real victory to build upon in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision rejecting President Bush's handling of detainees.

Speaking to reporters, Swift said the ruling marked a "high water point" in American history. "It's a return to our fundamental values."

Among those values, I assume Swift meant, is an unwillingness to let terrorists -- or weapons of mass destruction for that matter -- so frighten us that we suspend our principles and laws.

For almost five years now, we have been rewarding terrorists and conferring upon them far greater importance than they deserve through panicked and secret programs that ignore the rule of law, from the handling of detainees to the adoption of a national policy of preemption.

Special interest groups may hail the Supreme Court's rejection of the military tribunals as a rebuke of the President's "abuse of power" and celebrate a partisan victory. But we should all reflect upon the implication's of Swift's statement -- that we can fight terrorism without invoking the mindset of mortal threat and at the same time preserve who we are as Americans.

The Supreme Court yesterday rejected the Bush administration's plan to put Guantanamo detainees on trial before military commissions, ruling that the commissions were unauthorized by federal and international law. It additionally said that the Geneva Conventions apply to all detainees -- including the Geneva provision prohibiting trials except by "a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized people."

President Bush doggedly responded that he planned to work with Congress to "find a way forward" in crafting legislation that would authorize new, revamped tribunals. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has already introduced a bill "fixing" the military commissions to make them constitutionally compliant.

Commissions, in other words, will most certainly return in another guise and with new stationary.

The case the Court ruled on was an appeal brought on behalf of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni national (and civilian) who was captured in Afghanistan in November, 2001 and brought to Guantanamo Bay in June, 2002. The government has identified Hamdan as a driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.

In July, 2003, Hamdan was to be one of the first to face trial by military commission. In November, 2003, Lt. Cmdr. Swift, a Navy judge advocate general, was assigned as Hamdan's military appointed attorney. A superior officer ordered Swift to secure a plea bargain. But Swift instead decided to argue that Hamdan should be accorded the rights and protections of the Geneva Convention and that the military commissions at Guantanamo were themselves invalid.

According to reporting in The Los Angeles Times, Swift was fearful of the dangerous precedent that could be set by denying international standards of justice even to terrorists.

"I feel like we all won, that the rule of law won, and that is essentially what we are all about," Swift told the Times.

Swift also told the Associated Press yesterday that he had informed his client about the ruling by telephone. "I think he was awe-struck that the court would rule for him, and give a little man like him an equal chance," Swift said. "Where he's from, that is not true."

Here is a man in uniform who could have done a perfunctory job, who could have seen Hamdan as an assignment, or as an evil and not a human being; who could have saluted and followed orders; who risked promotion and now faces certain retirement without it. He is the hero of Guantanamo, and his action and behavior should be a stiff slap in the face for those Beltway generals and admirals who whimper about Rumsfeld when they are safely out of uniform.

But most important, it should be a message for the American people that we need to reject the terrorist nightmare and the power it holds over us.

The Swift doctrine: We can't be scared out of who we are.

By William M. Arkin June 30, 2006; 8:30 AM ET

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