What rule of law?

As we know, the Bush Administration is out to do away with the quaint notion that we live under a government of laws, not men. Just so it doesn't go by unmarked, let's look at a current instance. The WaPo reports that the U.S. military arrested a U.S. citizen in Baghdad in October, 2004 and has held him without charge ever since. Shawqi Omar, whose parents live in North Carolina, talked on the phone repeatedly with his wife who is in Jordon.

He has not been charged with any crime. When U.S. based lawyers filed papers arguing that Omar should either be charged or released,

Ned White of the Justice Department sent an e-mail to [Susan] Burke, Omar's [U.S.-based] attorney. "Mr. Omar is currently in the custody of Multinational Force-Iraq and a determination was previously made to refer his case to the Central Criminal Court of Iraq," White wrote. "Please be advised that, whenever scheduled, we would not be able to disclose to you the date of any hearing for security reasons."

Burke asserted in court papers filed this week that the government's actions were intended to subvert Omar's rights and that they placed him -- as a Sunni Muslim in a Shiite-dominated security apparatus -- in clear danger.

"The government's attempt at a middle-of-the-night transfer," the defense wrote, "to a foreign government that the United States has publicly stated engages in torture in an effort to avoid judicial review is conduct that shocks the conscience."

A federal judge ordered the government to argue a rationale for its actions on this coming Tuesday. We'll see if they just spirit Omar away in the night. (For what it is worth, this Shawqi Omar has the same name as an individual tied to Zarqawi in a Jordanian court indictment, but presumably someone who moved to the U.S. twenty five years ago, only returning to Iraq after the war, is not the same guy -- and if he were, we'd have given him to the Jordanians by now.)

UPDATE, 2/7/06: Newsweek reported today that the Shawqi Omar held in Baghdad is the same one wanted in Jordan. He is charged by U.S. authorities with connections to the Zarqawi network. Omar is a naturalized U.S. citizen who served in the National Guard in the 1980s. His family denies he is a terrorist; his attorneys are asking that he be charged and tried if the government has evidence against him.

Also on the rule of law front, Christopher Allbritton is back in Baghdad and reporting on his observations as a pool reporter at the Saddam Hussein trial. He is surprisingly impassioned in stating his opinion:

It’s not right to say the trial is fair; it’s not transparent and the tribunal’s legality is murky, considering the illegal origins of the war that brought the current government to power. ...

[I]n terms of setting up a tribunal and establishing a legal precedent for trying heads of state for alleged war crimes, the legality of the war is very much an issue. Precedent matters in the realm of law, and the institutional structures built by an occupation and its progeny had better be well-constructed indeed.

However, and this is a big “however,”: Saddam absolutely must be tried. He must be tried, judged and sentenced. He was — and likely still is — a horrible man, responsible for the deaths of thousands. If he committed the acts he’s accused of, he deserves the punishment meted out, and whether he was America’s bestest buddy in the region during the 1980s is beside the point.... Which is why he must be tried in an international tribunal.

Go read all of Allbritton's views and the responses.