The 20th season of Law & Order premiered  on Friday night, September 25, 2009. The show started out as an investigation surrounding the death of a former U.S. Marine who served as a guard for prisoners of war.  The young man was discharged after eight years of service because of mental instability. He was later diagnosed as having Post Dramatic Stress Disorder and as a result of his nightmares and emotional distress he was unable to sleep or keep a job.

A professor at the college where the former marine’s sister attended was part of the Bush administration’s legal team that wrote out the outline for interrogating/torturing prisoners while in U.S.

custody.  The disturbed marine confronted the professor about helping him with his military benefits which, because of his condition, he was not eligible to receive.

In the episode it made it clear that the professor murdered him to keep him quite because he was up for a promotion in the college. Being extremely knowledgeable of the legal system, the professor was able to suppress all the evidence against him and basically was legally able to get away with murder.

The District Attorney then decides to go after him and his entire line of command as conspirators in illegally torturing prisoners of war and causing the Post Dramatic Stress Disorder of the now dead marine.  In the end, the US government stepped in and squashed the case just as the verdict was about to be read.

This was a perfect example of what is so twisted about the war on terrorism and how we go about defending ourselves. Either we disregard the very principles that are supposed to set us apart from the rest of the world or we sink to the inhumane level that seems to be necessary to safeguard the very principles we are supposed to stand for.  In this episode of Law & Order the District Attorney was wanting to put that decision in the hands of the people of the U.S. instead of the government.