Marjorie Cohn (TruthOut): Bush Defies Military, Congress on Torture

[Jack Rabbit]

From TruthOut.com
Dated Monday August 1

Bush Defies Military, Congress on Torture
By Marjorie Cohn

After the grotesque torture photographs emerged from Abu Ghraib prison in April 2004, Bush said, "I shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated." He vowed the incidents would be investigated and the perpetrators would "be taken care of."

Bush seemed shocked to learn of torture committed by US forces. But then someone leaked an explosive Department of Justice memorandum that had been written in August 2002. The memo presented a blueprint explaining how interrogators could torture prisoners and everyone in the chain of command could escape criminal liability for war crimes. It said the President was above the law. That memo set the stage for the torture of prisoners in US custody.

Now we learn that, in early 2003, several senior uniformed military lawyers from each of the services voiced vigorous dissents to the policies outlined in the Justice Department's 2002 memo.

Maj. Gen. Jack L. Rives, the Air Force deputy judge advocate general, wrote that several of the "more extreme interrogation techniques, on their face, amount to violations of domestic criminal law" as well as military law. In fact, Rives added, use of many of these techniques "puts the interrogators and the chain of command at risk of criminal accusations abroad." Rives was talking about the well-established concept of universal jurisdiction, according to which any nation has the authority to prosecute any person for the commission of war crimes.

Read more.

[rodeodance]

1. and no one is powerful enough to halt this jaugernaut.

[wli]

3. no one person

Everyone standing aside while the cops pick them up would do.

[GetTheRightVote]

2. I am so sick to my stomach over all this, how could we let this happen

:kick: