Video: DOJ Lawyer Suggested U.S. Interrogators Committed War Crimes

In the above 2008 video of a Human Rights Watch panel, lawyer Jennifer Daskal says that the U.S. interrogators had done "things the United States has called war crimes when carried out against Americans."

Daskal, who once defended Gitmo detainee Omar Khadr, was tapped last summer to work in the DOJ's "National Security Division and to serve on a task force deciding the future of Guantanamo and its detainees."

As Tom Joscelyn has reported:

Daskal was one of the human rights lawyers who openly urged President Obama to stop the military proceedings against Omar Khadr, calling him a “child soldier.” 
 
Khadr was neither a child, nor a soldier, at the time he reportedly killed an Army medic. Khadr comes from a known al Qaeda family dedicated to Osama bin Laden. He was trained in al Qaeda camps and served a senior member of al Qaeda. There is even a video of Khadr manufacturing and placing IED's in Afghanistan. Khadr is a terrorist, not a soldier.

The above video shows Daskal calling Khadr a "child soldier" and claiming that he is entitled to an education financed by the U.S. government:

Let’s really think about who Omar Khadr is and what he’s accused of doing. He’s a child soldier. He’s a victim of his circumstance. He is hardly the worst of the worst. He is hardly the mastermind of 9/11 that the President said they were going to prosecute through these commissions. And he is being trotted out as an example as proof that the military commissions work in a system that was never designed to try someone like Omar Khadr. I want to talk briefly, just reiterate a little bit of what was already said about the obligations, the international obligations regarding the treatment of children who are in custody. The rules say ‘no prolonged detention’. Omar Khadr’s been in detention for almost six years now. The rules say kids must be rehabilitated. Omar Khadr has had no educational opportunities he’s had absolutely no rehabilitation whatsoever. He’s had no schooling, no chance to improve himself. He’s been held for over a quarter of his life in custody—without any—any education either by the US government or at the assistance of the [unintelligible]. And the rules say you need access to an attorney. Omar Khadr was held for several years before he was ever given access to an attorney.  And he was only given access to an attorney because the Supreme Court ordered it in connection with another lawsuit. Now the blame, clearly here is on the US government.

This is all standard fare for your average lefty-lawyer. Daskal suggests that international agreements such as the Geneva Conventions apply to illegal enemy combatants--and therefore the United States ought to apply the same standard of treatment to foreign terrorists as it would prisoners of war. And teenage terrorists have a right to an education provided by the U.S. government. She is entitled to her ideology, and Eric Holder and Barack Obama are entitled to have an activist lawyer help set detainee policy at the Department of Justice. The American people are also entitled to know that her ideology, like other pro bono Gitmo lawyers, is that of a radical civil libertarian, as Charles Krauthammer put it.