Tag Archives: War on Terror

Military Commission due process for KSM et. al., is unprecedented

Posted on by mjgranger

(Author’s Note: The statement below is in response to an April 9, 2012, editorial in the Long Island, New York newspaper, Newsday, which can be found at http://www.newsday.com/opinion/9-11-terror-trials-it-s-about-time-1.3647063 )

Dear Editor,

The delay you mention in “On al-Qaida trials, it’s about time” [Editorials, April 9], regarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s (KSM) prosecution was due largely to first, a two year wait for the Supreme Court to rule on legal challenges from the left, and second, a re-writing of the Military Commission’s Act (MCA) of 2006, due to extended political and legal challenges from the left.  Our current MCA of 2009 is governing the proceedings, not the aforementioned as you state in your editorial.  You also fail to mention what “due process” means in the context of the Commissions.  The newest MCA gives unlawful combatants unprecedented extra legal privileges, and these new privileges include “presumption of innocence until convicted beyond a reasonable doubt.”  A quick visit to http://www.mc.mil allows a fingertip study of U.S. military commissions, their origins, history, and current application.  It’s worth a look to see that there is virtually NO DIFFERENCE between a U.S. Courts-Martial, U.S. Federal Court proceedings, and a Military Commission, to the advantage of our enemies; how could this not be, in your words, “optimal?”  And optimal for whom, us or KSM?  By the way, the Nuremberg trials of World War II lasted about four years (1945-1949), and suffered no delay due to attempts to extend extra legal privileges to Nazis, and took place AFTER the end of hostilities. May I remind Newsday we are still very much in armed violent struggle with Islamist extremists, like KSM, who want to kill us.

What’s it like to take care of people who want to kill you?

Posted on by mjgranger

“Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior”

“Hard as it is to believe, one of the most significant stories of the post-9/11 age is also one of the least known, life at Gitmo, the detention facility for many of the world’s worst terrorists. Few individuals are more qualified to tell this story than Montgomery Granger, a citizen soldier, family man, dedicated educator, and Army Reserve medical officer involved in one of the most intriguing military missions of our time. Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay is about that historic experience, and it relates not only what it was like for Granger to live and work at Gitmo, but about the sacrifices made by him and his fellow Reservists serving around the world.”

Andrew Carroll, editor of the New York Times bestsellers War Letters and Behind the Lines

Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay, or “Gitmo: The Real Story,” is a “good history of medical, security, and intelligence aspects of Gitmo; also, it will be valuable for anyone assigned to a Gitmo-like facility.”

Jason Wetzel, Field Historian, Office of Army Reserve History

Then U.S. Army Reserve Captain Montgomery J. Granger found himself the ranking Army Medical Department officer wiht the Joint Detainee Operations Group (JDOG) on a joint mission like no other before it; taking care of terrorists and murderers just months after the horrors of September 11, 2001. Granger and his fellow Reservists end up running the JDOG at Guantanamo Bay’s infamous Camp X-Ray. In this moving memoir, Granger writes about his feelings of guilt over leaving his two-day-old son, Theodore, his family and job back home.  While in Guantanamo, he faces myriad torturous emotions and self-doubt, at once hating the inmates he is nonetheless duty bound to care for and protect. Through long distance love, and much heartache, Granger finds a way to keep his sanity and dignity. Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay is his story.

Montgomery J. Granger is a three-time mobilized U.S. Army Reserve Major (Ret.) who resides in Long Island, New York, with his wife and five children. Granger is the author of “Theodore,” a personal narrative published in the 2006 Random House wartime anthology, “Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan and the Home Front in the words of U.S. Troops and their Families.”