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Apr 2, 2008, 19:03 GMT
Senators charge 2003 memo gave legal cover to torture
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Older Talkback
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does he...have the authority to authorize the use of force in an interrogation????
Justice said he does....does he?
If EVERYTHING is allowed, what is 'torture'? If everything is 'National Security', what is NOT? When does bullcrap not smell?
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/02/BL2008040202171.h tml
Call It the Abu Ghraib Memo
The Justice Department memo released yesterday is a key link in the chain of evidence connecting the monstrous abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere straight to the White House.
President Bush has described the torture and murder of prisoners by U.S. military personnel as the work of an aberrant few. But this 2003 memo opened the door to precisely the kinds of abuse so horrifically chronicled in the Abu Ghraib photographs.
And the memo's author -- John Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel -- was a longtime ally and notoriously pliant scribe for the radical legal views of Vice President Cheney and his chief enforcer, David S. Addington.
Yoo's memo is a historic document. It is the ultimate expression of Cheney's belief that anything the president or his designates do -- no matter how illegal, barbaric or un-American -- is justifiable in the name of national self-defense.
It is also an example of how enabling zealots to disregard the rule of law and the customary boundaries of human conduct leads to madness.
Among the key quotes: 'If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network. In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch's constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions.'
(That's called excusing everything in advance)
'Nine months after it was issued, Justice Department officials told the Defense Department to stop relying on it. But its reasoning provided the legal foundation for the Defense Department's use of aggressive interrogation practices at a crucial time, as captives poured into military jails from Afghanistan and U.S. forces prepared to invade Iraq.
'Sent to the Pentagon's general counsel on March 14, 2003, . . . the memo provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of war. It contends that numerous laws and treaties forbidding torture or cruel treatment should not apply to U.S. interrogations in foreign lands because of the president's inherent wartime powers. . . .
'Interrogators who harmed a prisoner would be protected by a 'national and international version of the right to self-defense,' Yoo wrote. He also articulated a definition of illegal conduct in interrogations -- that it must 'shock the conscience' -- that the Bush administration advocated for years.
Every 'emergency' that Cheney has brought up, including WMD in Iraq, has been proven a lie. When the liar says that what he's doing is 'for the common good', those red flags go up.
www.wsws.org/articles/2006/sep2006/inte-s13.shtml
Bush, Cheney ignore Senate report debunking Iraq-Al Qaeda ties
By Joe Kay
13 September 2006
The Senate Intelligence Committee issued a new report last week that further refutes one of the central lies used by the Bush administration to justify the war in Iraq: the claim that Iraq had ties to Al Qaeda.
The report concludes, “Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa’ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qa’ida to provide material or operational support.”
The report is part of the second phase of the committee’s investigation into the justifications given for the invasion of Iraq. In the first phase, the committee examined pre-war claims made by US intelligence agencies regarding Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction programs. This report was completed in 2004 and concluded that the claims made of Iraqi nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs were false.
(Why is Cheney not on trial for perjury? Executive privilege)
International law prohibits the bushie stature
www.vanityfair.com/
War crimes?
rawstory.com/news/2008/Highlevel_members_of_Administration_pressured_un derlings_0402.html
His lips move.
Check out what the Supreme Court thinks of International Law. In Texas vs. Medellin, the supremes decided that international treaty has no force of law unless Congress ratifies it. Then, when GW Bush said that Texas was obligated to honor the treaty, the supremes told the feds to kiss off, because the President does not have the right to enforce the treaty as law, and has not authority to force it upon the states.
So take that and stick it in your international law.
It was States' rights in Texas vs. the Feds - nothing to do with the larger issue of the U.S. potentially violating the standards set in the Geneva Convention insofar as torture of many persons. The Supreme Court in fact ruled in favor of Texas over everyone else concerned. Very interesting case. Check Justice Breyer's dissent in the second link. Still, it's a stretch to relate any of this to the current situation, because Texas had already tried the accused.
abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Story?id=3708455&page=1
Medellin, a Mexican citizen who had lived in the United States most of his life, claims that had he known that he could inform Mexican consular officers of his detention they could have potentially assisted him by providing funding for experts or investigators or ensuring that he was represented by a competent defense counsel.
Taking the side of Medellin, President Bush issued a statement admitting that the United States had breached an article of the Vienna Convention that requires such consular notification.
But Texas found the president's actions to be intrusive on the sovereignty of the states. Greg Abbott, attorney general of Texas, argues that Texas cannot be forced to reopen the cases because 'the presidential memorandum transgresses the authority of Congress, of the judiciary and of the states.'
(On this one, I happen to be on Bush's side)
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/03/25/ST2008032502998. html
Wednesday, March 26, 2008; Page A01
The Supreme Court yesterday issued a broad ruling limiting presidential power and the reach of international treaties, saying neither President Bush nor the World Court has the authority to order a Texas court to reopen a death penalty case involving a foreign national.
The justices held 6 to 3 that judgments of the International Court of Justice, as the court is formally known, are not binding on U.S. courts and that Bush's 2005 executive order that courts in Texas comply anyway does not change that.
The decision, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., was a rebuke to the government in a case that involved the powers of all three branches of government, the intricacies of treaties and the international debate over the death penalty.
It placed the president on the side of Ernesto Medell¿n, a brutal murderer, and the rulings of the World Court, and against the authority of his home state's courts.
Texas's high court had rejected the World Court's judgment that it 'review and reconsider' Medell¿n's conviction because he is a Mexican national and was not advised after his arrest that he could meet with a consular from his country, as the Vienna Convention requires.
Even though the administration disagreed with the World Court's decision -- and has withdrawn from the international pact that gave it force -- Bush nonetheless issued a memorandum ordering the Texas courts to rehear Medell¿n's case.
But Roberts wrote that neither the Optional Protocol of the Vienna Convention nor the operative part of the United Nations Charter creates binding law in the absence of implementing legislation from Congress.
And he wrote that the government had not made the case that Bush had the power to issue a directive that 'reaches deep into the heart of the state's police powers and compels state courts to reopen final criminal judgments and set aside neutrally applicable state laws.'
Those responsible both civilians and military from the United States must be tried before the International Criminal Court for torture.
...but the subject of International Law is jurisdictional, and the Sup Court laid down a pretty definitive guide. International law doesn't apply to the USA unless it's ratified by Congress.
Gringo pigs must be brought before the ICC and given no amnesty for they are the biggest human rights abuser on earth ever. No country and nobody is above international law and the hand of international law must cover USA whether they ratify that in their so-called congress or not.
The Interstate Commerce Commission?
There is no international law. It's a farce, and, as the Supremes said in their last decision, blow me.
As for torture, anyone who wants to step up must bring their own cases of mistreatment up before we step to the witness chair.
What do you call Torture?
Who gave these moronic senators the authority in our name for our personnel to commit to torture.
Certainly not us the voters. America has become a dictatorship, dammit!
Fascism sucks. I hope someone invades our country and forces democracy on us.
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