No doubt the Left will be wanting to cry "retaliation!" However, I think there is significantly less to this story than meets the eye.

The Navy lawyer who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration's military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay has been passed over for promotion and will have to leave the military, The Miami Herald reported Sunday.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, will retire in March or April under the military's ``up or out'' promotion system. Swift said last week he was notified he would not be promoted to commander.

He said the notification came about two weeks after the Supreme Court sided with him and against the White House in the case involving Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was Osama bin Laden's driver.

``It was a pleasure to serve,'' Swift told the newspaper. He added he would have defended Hamdan even if he had known it would cut short his Navy career.

``All I ever wanted was to make a difference - and in that sense I think my career and personal satisfaction has been beyond my dreams,'' Swift said.

The Pentagon had no comment Sunday.

The problem with this story (by the anti-American Guardian) is that the promotion decision would have been made weeks before the Hamdan case was decided by the Supreme Court. There are only a limited number of promotion slots to captain available, particularly in the JAG Corps, and a lot of highly qualified attorneys seeking to make that next step. Much like we see each fall in the NFL when rosters are pruned, good men of talent and integrity do not make the cut and find themselves taking an unplanned career detour.

As my dad said to me some years ago when a friend's father retired under similar circumstances, such decisions are not a reflection on the man but are instead designed to make room for the next generation of officers coming up the ladder -- or else we would rapidly find the military full of 40-year-old lieutenants waiting for 60-year-old commanders and 70-year-old captains to die or retire. Military readiness dictates that we not allow such a situation to occur.

Posted by: Greg at 11:45 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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