Sen. Lindsey Graham visits southern Beaufort County today

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., will make two stops in southern Beaufort County today.

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Sen. Graham Returns to Iraq, in Cmoflage

Sen. Graham is in Iraq to complete a third tour of duty according to Stars and Stripes. He was in Iraq in May and August of 2007 as well for short tours of duty. He is an Air Force Reservist and teaches at the Judge Advocate General School in Alabama.

Graham told Stars and Stripes in an interview “I’d like to do more, but [with] the day job, you know in the Senate, it’s hard to get away for any long period.”

Graham is proving again that he is dedicated to serving his country, both in uniform and out. It may seem odd for a politician to be in uniform, but there is precedent stretching back in history and Sen. Graham is just another link in that proud history.

Lindsey Graham on Late Edition

Sen. Graham appeared on CNN’s Late Edition yesterday discussing Iraq and Turkey.

Mr. Blitzer asked him about the Comments of retired General Ricardo Sanchez about Iraq policy. He responded by not attaching a motive to Gen. Sanchez’s assessment of the policy but placed his comments in the context of him being on the ground during Abu Ghraib. Graham claimed to have asked Sanchez at the time if he needed more troops. He was offering a way for the general to request more troops because he knew that there was not enough well-trained troops there.

Sen. Lindsey Graham – The Only Elected Reservist to Serve in Iraq

Senators and Congressmen who travel to Iraq typically go as part of a congressional delegation for a few days and then leave to report their findings to the public once they arrive home. Sen. Lindsey Graham recently went on such a visit with Sen. John McCain, but after McCain and his other colleagues left he changed into Air Force desert camouflage and served eight days with the Rule of Law Task Force in Iraq.

This makes him unique among his four colleagues that are reservists. Senator Graham is the only sitting elected official to have ever voted for a resolution authorizing use of military force and then served himself.

Sen. Graham recently returned from a nine day trip to Iraq–two days as part of a congressional delegation and seven days as an Air Force reservist. He has concluded that the surge is working as a result of his visit and service in-country.In an interview on FoxNews Sunday Graham explained out the details of the sixteen Sheiks that were now working with us to secure the country. In comments to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal upon his return that we should know by early Fall about the will of the Iraqi people to control their country and that we needed Gen. Petraeus years ago. This cautious optimism after return is bolstered by his comment while on the delegation visit that Iraqis are resilient people.

Sen. Graham explains what he saw while in Iraq in his editorial “Progress and losses in Iraq,” which appeared in the State, a Columbia, SC newspaper.

He pointed out that their was more cooperation with tribal leaders in Anbar Province and that thy were encouraging young people to join the Iraqi police force. He was allowed into areas that were previously off-limits while with the delegation.

He was assigned with the Rule of Law Task Force while serving his week of reserve duty. He saw cases brought before courts and saw up close that nothing good happens without a price. The price in this case was Navy Commander Phillip Murphy-Sweet, who had just extended his tour and was optimistic about their mission. Murphy-Sweet was killed by an IED a day after Sen. Graham met him.

He also reported a security problem at Camp Bucca where al-Queda detainees are held along with prisoners who are not dangerous. The prison was becoming a recruiting ground for the terrorists, but there was a plan to deal with the problem.

Since returning and from service and authoring the editorial Sen. Graham has been on CBS and CNN discussing what he learned in Iraq.

He told CBS the following:

The one thing I learned about the surge is that the military part of it, knocking down doors and shooting al Qaeda and arresting extremists, is part of it but not all of it. There is a surge going on on the law front.The one thing I learned about the surge is that the military part of it, knocking down doors and shooting al Qaeda and arresting extremists, is part of it but not all of it. There is a surge going on on the law front.

The one thing I learned about the surge is that the military part of it knocking down doors and shooting Al Qaeda and arresting extremists is a part of it but not all of it. There is a surge going on on the law front. The Rule of Law Task Force was stood up on April first.

I looked at some detention issues, we have 19,000 people detained in American custody, and trying to create a better legal venue to hear their claims and keep the bad ones off the street who are a danger to our troops and the Iraqi government, and to let some of them go with supervision and to get the others tried in Iraqi criminal court.

One way to kill the insurgency beyond military force is to create a government that is fair to its citizens and the rule of law to me is about ‘what you did’ not ‘who you are’. We’re trying to break the politics of revenge and the cycle of revenge. Instead of killing someone who has killed a member of your family, we’re trying to create a legal system that will hold Shiias, Sunnis and Kurds accountable when they try to topple the government or kill innocent people. The old legal system was there to serve the dictator. The new legal system has to be there to serve all people not just one group of people… a jury of peers will decide your fate, not politicians or dictators.

The problem in Iraq is out of control violence. The number one target of the insurgency are judges. If you’re a judge in Iraq you’re an incredibly brave person. Because they just don’t try to kill you, they try to kill your family. So General Petraeus tried to build a compound in Baghdad for judges. Took an old army base, reinforced it, put housing on base for judges and their families and created a brand new courtroom a detention facility to hold people in the compound to give the judges confidence that if they did their job they could do it without fear. Within 60 days the American military took over this old Army base and just about completed all the housing as I speak, got the courtroom built in five days and reinforced the compound to provide security for the judges and their families.

April 1st, the day I got into the theater, the first trial was held in the Rule of Law Green Zone. An Iraqi judge heard two cases on the same day, one case involved a Shiite police officer, a very powerful captain in the police force who was accused of torturing Sunnis in the jailhouse. And it was an earthshaking event in Iraq because this person was well-known in the region from where he came and nobody believed that he would ever be held accountable because of his political connections.

The second case was a Sunni Al Qaeda operative who was accused of randomly killing Shiite civilians to spark sectarian violence. On the same day you had a Sunni and a Shiite held accountable for trying to topple the government and to kill people of the other sect. And the judge was a Sunni. It is a small step toward breaking the politics of revenge where the legal system focused on what they did to a fellow Iraqi, not what their sect was. It was a brave, bold move by the judiciary to be independent of sectarian violence.

There exists a large number of people in Iraq who want a different way of doing business, who are literally risking their own lives to change Iraq. And I do believe that with the right amount of support, that there is still hope that those who believe that the law should be about what someone does, not who they are, have a chance of winning in Iraq.

He also discussed the loss of his colleague, Commander Murphy-Sweet saying: “And he told me the story about how the American military, in conjunction with the Iraqi government, built this complex in 60 days, how they built the courtroom in five days, and it was a courtroom any state in our nation would be proud of. This was on a Friday. He was killed the next morning. Three young kids, beautiful wife, from Pennsylvania, killed by an IED.And it hit me hard because I knew him. And I’m sure the other deaths in Iraq have hit their colleagues very hard. I just happened to meet this guy, just a random chance in life that I spent the last day with him. He was killed within 24 hours of when I met him. And I guess the story goes for me is that nothing good in Iraq happens without a sacrifice.”

Eye to Eye: Senator Lindsey Graham (CBS News)

This is the story that the media is not telling and needs to be considered. We should consider carefully the words of this senator who served in Iraq when he did not have to because he is exempted by DoD Directive 1200.7.

Senator Graham in Iraq Spring 2007

Sen. Graham Travels to Guantanamo to witness CSRT Hearing

Source: New York Times

Saturday marked the first hearing of a Combat Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) at that was closed to the media. This was a pivotal hearing of Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

“I was responsible for the 9/11 operation form A-Z,” Mohammed admitted as he gave his confession to the tribunal consisting of three military officers and with two United States Senators Lindsey Graham and Carl Levin watched via closed circuit TV.Senators Graham and Levin were present to observe the process and report back about what happened. Graham was an architect of the Military Commissions Act which Levin voted against. They released a joint statement today that explained the process and said that it went well. However, they added that “the true test of the CSRT process is not a case in which the detainee admits the allegations against him, it is a case in which the detainee disputes those allegations. Judicial review of the tribunals is ongoing. We will continue to review the process and will explore possible ways to improve this process through Congressional action.”

Graham challenges colleagues to act rather than talk on Iraq

In comments to WCBD in Charleston Sen. Graham challenged his colleagues “political courage” because they are planning a vote a non-binding resolution that expresses their discontent with the ’surge’ and urged them to “cheer them on” rather than cast a vote of “no confidence in Gen. Petraeus.” He further said the vote would “empower our enemies, and be demoralizing to our own troops.”

Graham Introduces Legislation to Honor General Francis Marion in Washington D.C.

The legislation was first introduced in the 109th Congress be Joe Wilson (R) in the Congress, Lindsey Graham in the Senate and signed on to by the remainder of the state’s delegation. This legislation would allow for a statue of General Francis Marion to be built in Marion Park, located at the intersection of E Street South Carolina Avenue in Washington, D.C. This legislation has been introduced in the Congress and Senate again.

109th: S. 2822, H.R. 5057
110th: S. 312, H.R. 497

The Congress passed the bill last session by voice vote, but never received a hearing and vote in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. H.R. 5057 has been reintroduced as HR. 497 and S. 2822 has been reintroduced as S. 312. The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources has placed the bill on their legislative calendar, but there is yet to be a hearing scheduled. H.R. 497 was referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources and has yet to be placed on the legislative calendar.

In comments to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal in 2006 Congressman Wilson said, “As a South Carolinian, I am proud his legacy has been honored with a memorial park in Washington, D.C. Yet I feel strongly that a statue of the Swamp Fox should be erected on its premises. Passage of this bill is a crucial first step in making this dream a reality.”

General Francis Marion is counted in the lineage of the United States Army Rangers and used the forerunner of modern day guerilla warfare techniques during the Revolutionary War. Marion was a member of the South Carolina Provincial Congress and held a commission as a captain in the 2nd South Carolina Regiment. (Source: Wikipedia)

Sen. Graham Serves in Afghanistan

Lindsey is the only member of the National Guard or Reserves who serves in the U.S. Senate. He recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan where he helped to train Afghan lawyers and judges.

Graham helps train Afghan Lawyers

Glad to be Sen. Graham’s Friend

Paul at PowerLine is as disappointed in Sen. Graham’s lack of a response to the issue of weather he is blocking the Haynes nomination in his recent letter to conservative groups. The partisanship of the retired military officer does not matter as long as his concerns are valid. I am sure that Paul would be siging a different turn if this military officer were a partisan Republican. The other man mentioned, Mr. Guter is not incoherent just becasue he disagrees with a policy. If Mr. Haynes could not break from his ’superiors’ as General Counsel of DoD than it is right to question hsi indepedence as a judge when dealing with the cases that are sure to come before the court in the interceeding years.

Sen. Graham is relying on the testimony of former officers that either worked with Haynes or in the environment that Haynes created when he sold out his DoD position to go along with the Jusitce Department position. It is unfair to say that Sen. Graham is ignoring pro-Haynes viewpoints of the officer cited. If Maj. Gen. Michael Marchand would go in and talk to him or write a letter to him than He would consider his viewpoint as well.

He refers to these memos because they represented DoD policy and the concerns about the effect on the service men and women were valid.

He is talking about the JAG memos, which took him a year and one-half to get and they were classified for some unknown reason. If the advice was followed than why couldn’t the Senator have them sooner? If they weren’t doing aything wrong why classify the opinion of the JAGs when the memos between Bybee, Haynes, Gonzales, and the other civilian lawyers were made public? Why did Secretary Rumsfeld later have to decertify some of the methods and why are we still dealing with this if he listened to their advice and the document addressed their concerns?

The argument that Sen. Graham did not consider the views of Maj. Gen. Roning or supoprters of Haynes is wrong because just the fact that he called someone that poisitively assessed Haynes is telling about his willingness to consider views contrary to his own and the critics.

The letter does not directly address the issue of his role in stopping the Haynes nomination, but conservatives have drawn the conclusion from the wording that he is the impediment. This is no surprise to me because he has said that there was one nominee that he would vote against and I think Haynes is that nominee. If the Haynes nomination goes through committee and to the floor there will be a filibuster and I would rather see Sen. Graham do everything in his power to preserve the civility and working order of the Senate.

No Nomination Games Being Played

I agree that something needs to be done about the obstruction of judicial nominees, but what can be done so that we do not change to operation of the Senate? The “nuclear option” is no option at all becasue it will destroy the Senate.

Sen. Graham is blocking Mr. Haynes on principle becasue of his role in the torture scandal. No game here. Mr. Haynes wrote and endorsed the memos.

You bet that there would be cries of foul play if his election were moved up to tomorrow becasue it is not supposed to be until 2008. He is not supportive of nominees colling their heels fro years, but the one in question is problematic and there was some given up by the compromise.

The abuses have existed for a long time, but that does not mean we need a radical solution that makes irreversable changes.

I support the reforms because it would give all nominees of all presidents a fair vote, however, the Senators should have a right to block if there are substantial concerns, such as there are with Mr. Haynes.

I do not have a problem with knowing who is doing the blocking, however, a rules change should be done without the “nuclear option” and the Specter approach is a good start.

Response to “Lord on Judicial Nominations” on ConfirmThem.