NEWS RELEASE -- 'Defend the Press' Organizes to Support Reporter Sarah Olson, Subpoenaed in Court Martial of Ehren Watada

You're on the right track here - this recent gambit is a classic MJ/JAG move to use a current event as a way to surf their way further into the protected realm of civilian society and out of the once-tightly fenced reservation to which MJ was originally restricted. If successful, it will create yet another corrosive precedent that will weaken the protections afforded by civil (and Constitutional) justice. But remember, JAGs are military officers as well as lawyers, and thus twice as cagey. Simply by engaging them as if they were a legitimate court (as any attorney would rightly advise you to do) already grants them their first victory: you are implicitly acknowledging their system as legitimate (you are merely quibbling over a particular choice they made).

But an excellent case can be made to the public that the MJ system is not as legitimate as it would very much like to be perceived. It is a Rube-Goldberg contraption constructed over a Constitutional abyss, and actually in contravention of the clearly printed text of the Fifth Amendment. Parts 1 and 2 of "Military Justice Is No Music" over on Chez Odysseus site at Blogspot goes into this in detail with legal citations. On the same site, "Warrior Professionals" and "Bishops Bomb" deal with the very dicey position of 'professionals' (attorneys, doctors, clergy) within the military system. Their dilemma (not often faced up to) is a formally institutionalized problem that intensifies the 'embed' dilemma of journalists trying to cover the military during actual operations.

A simple engagement in the court forum (which any competent attorney would properly recommend) is insufficient and will play into their hands. Like Grant at Vicksburg, you have to go around to the other side of the fortress that is confronting you; a frontal assault over ground that they have long-prepared and 'registered' is almost doomed to failure unless it is supported by a significant program of public education into just what a dangerous and growing monstrosity this MJ system is nowadays.

If it was a dubious Constitutional proposition at the very outset and was yet closely caged, it is now seeking to grow in public esteem and expand its writ. And this is on top of the 'militarization' of our police and our law enforcement and prosecutors (not just SWAT chic and rampages such as Paul Roberts discusses today on the Counterpunch site) who now ignore 'due process' in order to achieve the Outcome of Victory, in the process making the 'accused' into an 'enemy' who must be made the object of a well-coordinated assault. This is not how the Constitution envisions the Justicial process. Prosecutor Nifong of the Duke rape case is a classic example: accidentally exposed to the light because he overplayed his hand, but his tactics and strategy are pure military: once you've declared someone 'the enemy' then it's only a matter of putting together the best assault on him to achieve victory over him. (And does that sound like the unilateral declaration of just about anybody as an 'enemy combatant'?)

So a wide approach to defending Ms. Olson will not only help her situation but will help educate the public into what has become a serious and sustained eroding of Constitutional protections and the corrupting of civil society (and ultimately our civil culture).