[IP] more on Proposed War Crimes Act protection for Bush
Begin forwarded message:
From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: August 10, 2006 12:00:16 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] Proposed War Crimes Act protection for Bush
At 05:13 PM 8/9/2006, David Farber wrote:
Interrogation practices "follow from policies that were formed at the
highest levels of the administration," said a fourth attorney, Scott
Horton, who has followed detainee issues closely. "The administration
is trying to insulate policymakers under the War Crimes Act."
A White House spokesman said Common Article 3 of the Geneva
Conventions includes a number of vague terms that are susceptible to
different interpretations.
The administration believes it is very important to bring clarity to
the War Crimes Act so that those on the front lines in the war on
terror "have clear rules that are defined in law," said the White
House spokesman.
...
When interrogators engage in waterboarding, prisoners are strapped to
a plank and dunked in water until nearly drowning.
I will feel even more shame than I now do for America if our elected
legislators manage to pare down "that which we will not do" to leave
all manner of torture--and there's no way to define it that makes
waterboarding something other than torture--on the table.
But there's no need for legislation at all: the President is free to
issue pardons to Americans convicted under existing, not-yet-
retroactively-abolished U.S. law. But I'd like to have him put his
signature to the paper that reads, "I pardon the crime of torture/
maiming/homicide/etc. in the name of America," and bear the
consequences, not duck out behind a spineless, complicit Congress.
There's a NYT editorial in response to the Lamont primary win that I
think says a lot about the current state of things (http://
www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/opinion/09wed1.html); this excerpt in
particular:
"The rebellion against Mr. Lieberman was actually an uprising by
that rare
phenomenon, irate moderates. They are the voters who have been
unnerved over
the last few years as the country has seemed to be galloping in a
deeply
unmoderate direction. A war that began at the president's
choosing has
degenerated into a desperate, bloody mess that has turned much of
the world
against the United States. The administration's contempt for
international
agreements, Congressional prerogatives and the authority of the
courts has
undermined the rule of law abroad and at home.
"Yet while all this has been happening, the political discussion in
Washington has become a captive of the Bush agenda. Traditional
beliefs like
every person's right to a day in court, or the conviction that
America
should not start wars it does not know how to win, wind up being
portrayed
as extreme. The middle becomes a place where senators struggle to
get the
president to volunteer to obey the law when the mood strikes him.
Attempting
to regain the real center becomes a radical alternative."
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