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Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Diaz: Why is the Navy Treating a Patriot Like a Criminal?
Recently, I wrote here about the tragic conviction of Navy Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Diaz for leaking the names of Guantanamo inmates to a human rights lawyer in 2003. Even though the military later released all the names anyway, Diaz was convicted on the improbable charge of damaging the interests of the U.S. by revealing the names. He was sentenced to six months in prison. All for doing what any decent American should’ve done. All for standing up for traditional American values of freedom, decency, fairness and the rule of law.
Diaz’ niece saw my post at TPMCafe and wrote me a nice note thanking me. Then Bryan White, one of my readers, asked me if he could contact Diaz to thank him for his bravery:
Poor bastard! They’ve got the wrong guy in jail. He’s been locked up for obeying the law.
…I’m sending him a letter telling him I admire him and that I wish him the best. See if he needs anything or just feels like corresponding. Show solidarity. I support the guy and want to be sure he knows it. Millions of people support him. I just hope he doesn’t come out of this bitter or hateful…
Matt agreed to recieve mail from Bryan and the former’s niece graciously provided his military address. I was thinking that if others of my readers would like to do this I could pass on your names to his niece and ask her permission to provide Matt’s postal address.
But you can’t have Matt’s e mail address because the Navy denies him e-mail privileges. You also can’t send Matt copied pages from any media (including the internet). You can only send him newspapers or magazines that are pre-approved. The idea that a man who gave 18 yrs of his life as a Navy lawyer is locked up as a common criminal & prevented even from using e mail is so repugnant as to be beyond belief. This man is a patriot & deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom, not 6 months in solitary. What is the Navy afraid of–that he will communicate some secret code to yet another human rights lawyer and give away the keys to the kingdom?
Matt Diaz is an American patriot. The military brass and CIA officers running Gitmo and their enablers back in DC are the criminals who deserve six months in the brig for ignoring our Constitution. Matt should be giving lessons in habeus corpus and due process to senators like Lindsay Graham and John McCain who essentially “legalized Gitmo.”
Warren said:
The treatment of Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Diaz is truly disgusting. There is something really rotten at the core of the military leadership for them to try and (subsequently) convict a hero of conscience like Diaz. Either it’s plain moral rottenness or the military brass are just so beholden to the Neo-con civilian leadership and essentially spineless, that they are willing to sell out their own men in the service of their personal convenience/political expediency. I’ve felt for a long time that our brave fighting men and women do not have leaders, military or civilian, worthy of their sacrifice. You look at Veteran’s Healthcare or the longstanding denial of Gulf War Syndrome, and you wonder what our soldiers are even fighting and dying for if this is the way they’re treated after they give everything. It’s the leadership who should be in the brig, as you say. This outrage is further testimony to the fact that we are morally/ethically lost in the wilderness as a nation.
Katie Johnsonius said:
I wish to know what has happened to this fine fellow. An honest lawyer. I am so proud of him, and I want to know what has come of him. Please reply with information that you may have, and, if possible, a way that I might tell him that he is a great American hero for me.