The United States Dept. of Justice just argued in front of the Supreme Court that torture is de fact

[dixiegrrrrl]

"torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military's detention of suspected enemy combatants."

This is what the Justice Dept...OUR Justice Dept........Obama's Justice Dept.
said Monday in defending a lower court ruling.
( the Dept. also argued that detainees are not "persons" for purposes of American law)

If "torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military's detention of suspected enemy combatants."
per CURRENT Justice Dept. claims,and that detainees do not fall into the purview of American law,
then how can Obama claim he has made it illegal?

[villager]

1. Well, he's made it change-y and hopeful, at least...

n/t

[AndrewP]

12. Hopeful torture! YAY

[chimpymustgo]

2. My hair hurts. Thank you for posting. This gets more painful with every day, every piece of news.

:puke:

[robinlynne]

9. agreed.

[EFerrari]

26. I know. I'm at the point where I'm deliberately filtering

a lot of stuff out because it's already into overload territory.

[QC]

3. How very, very hopeful and changealicious! n/t

[mike_c]

4. changiness....

:puke:

[EFerrari]

5. Do you have a link that I can read?

:(

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. ooops...here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2238568/pagenum/all/

[EFerrari]

16. Thank you!

[mullard12ax7]

11. Here's a simple research hint

Rather than demanding someone supply you with information, just use google. Take a piece of what the poster posted, like "torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military's detention of suspected enemy combatants" and google it.

[EFerrari]

15. Um, I didn't "demand" anything, Mr. Intertubes Tough Guy.

[rurallib]

37. It is expected that when you post something you post the

corroborating link(s) with it.

[EFerrari]

43. And more than that, that way we can see the same thing the OP is seeing

and that helps focus the discussion.

[Tansy_Gold]

6. Let's see -- human beings are not people, but corporations are?

Oh, how wonderful the change is!

:puke:

[chimpymustgo]

29. OMG, good catch. That's our changiness!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. It's comforting to the apologists that "not persons" can be tortured.

I suppose they can be considered chopped liver after our heroic "interrogators" get through with them.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

36. kick

[atreides1]

8. Change and Hope

Not so much



Why would you allow yourself to be captured if you know ahead of time that you will be tortured? Better to die in battle killing as many Americans as you can!

[silverweb]

13. I have a hypothesis.

I think that Obama is letting these cases proceed through the justice system without his public input because he wants the courts to determine the outcome and set legal precedents that will affect all future cases.

He could do it the easy way, like _george did.

He could just plant a few loyal minions in plum jobs and issue his orders sub rosa. But that would provide no real binding, long-term consequences.

Meanwhile, I'm just watching and waiting to see how things develop.

[Gregorian]

18. That's what I'm thinking as well.

I also don't know the details of how the arguments went. I'm sure it's all rather complex, unfortunately.

[dixiegrrrrl]

33. If you read the article, you would see the arguements are LAW.

The Justice Dept. was arguing TO the Supreme Court, saying " Please do not accept the argument against our decision".
The Supreme Court obligingly decided to let the opinion stand, will not hear the case.
Thus, lower court ruling that detainees are not persons is upheld.
Thus, torture is an expected outcome, in the past and apparently the future, and cannot be appealed in American Courts.
And the Just-US Dept. continues the Bush legacy.

[Gregorian]

44. Thanks. I was remiss, and didn't read the article.

It donned on me after posting that that was probably the case. Damnit. That sucks. I'm really running low in hope. It's pretty hard to spin that in a good way. But then I am in a lawsuit right now, and it's very strange stuff.

[EFerrari]

21. But his Justice Department is not letting these cases proceed

if they can help it, or, that's what it looks like to me. :(

[moodforaday]

48. Believe it or not,

during the Bush years there were some (not many I'm sure, but some) who believed the Dems were letting Repubs do all the scary, illegal sh*t they were doing so that people would realize once and for all what it's like to live under a right-wing regime and never again vote R. Thinking so may have made these people more comfortable than seeing Dems for the willing bipartisan partners in crime that they were.

And when I was much younger than I am today, I thought a girl I was in love with was dating another guy only to pique my own interest in her even more. It couldn't possibly be simply because she preferred him, could it?

I am sorry, but I think your rationalizing is just as delusional. This is going to overload many people's grandiosity meter, but it seems to me that hope is very wrong when it translates into passive acceptance of injustice.

I personally don't care what goodness Obama did for human rights in the past, nor do I care about his past and present pronouncements (such as, saying that he did not intend to prosecute anyone in the Bush admin for alleged crimes, but that he "won't stand in the way of any such attempts" - a few months before the elections). And I know he's awesomely brilliant, but intelligence is just a tool, you can put it to good and evil uses alike. A politician is what a politician does. There's no reason to invent unlikely excuses.

[jgraz]

14. Obama's claim that he "outlawed torture" is part of the coverup

No, Mr. President. The Bill of RIghts outlawed torture. Stop pretending that the 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments are something you just thought up.

[tekisui]

17. If it were really outlawed, we would see convictions or at least indictments.

[jgraz]

25. No, you don't understand. He *just* outlawed it.

Before Obama came to power, it was perfectly legal. :banghead:

[tekisui]

30. Damn, they are protected ex post facto.

Too bad those torturers were able to outsmart us all, even our super-smart President.

[dixiegrrrrl]

47. Well put.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

19. the law obviously has to be changed

if they were 'suspected' then they were not bone fide enemy combatants.

[EFerrari]

24. When has the CIA given a sh!t about the law? n/t

[Rosa Luxemburg]

28. when

if they are military detainees are they under the Pent or the Central Int agency (in terms of definition?) detainees of whom?

[EFerrari]

32. DoD has its own intellegence agencies but clearly CIA

was leading in most of these cases. And speaking of DoD, they don't seem to give a hoot about the law, either. Did you watch the Taguba hearings? It was very, very bad theater where the interested parties claimed there was no torture and that they were outraged by the abuse at Abu Ghraib.

A couple of years later, we find out it was POLICY and that they were all lying their @sses off.

/oops (it's/its

[Rosa Luxemburg]

50. The United States should set an example to the world

unfortunately we are no better than all the regimes throughout the world and where their dictators have been hung or imprisoned for war crimes.

[Mira]

20. I am too digusted with them to speak.... Recommended

The Geneva Conventions are supposedly still valid (with full understanding that we crapped all over them for the years of Bush/Cheney).

[valerief]

22. Well, another change. For the worse. nt

[mullard12ax7]

23. I'm calling my elected leaders and demanding something they'll never do

I'll demand they get a conscience.

[Zodiak]

27. I'm sorry but there is no difference between Holder's Justice Dep't

And Ashcroft's.

It pains me greatly that I honestly believe that.

[Winterblues]

31. "USA"..."USA"..."USA"...

:crazy:

[chill_wind]

34. dixiegrrrrl... I went to see

what the Emptywheel crew might be saying. I see this in the meantime! :-(

SCOTUS: Rummy Is Immune in Torture Suit
emptywheel Monday December 14, 2009 8:57 am

"The Court’s denial of review of Rasul, et al., v. Myers, et al. (09-227)
leaves intact a federal appeals court ruling that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and ten military officers are legally immune to claims of torture and religious bias against inmates who were at Guantanamo but have since been released. The Obama Administration had urged the Court not to hear the case, saying that, whatever claims the four ex-detainees were now making, they had no legal basis for those challenges at the time they were at the U.S. military prison in Cuba — that is, between January 2002 and March 2004.

The D.C. Circuit Court had ruled in favor of immunity, and in doing so avoided a repeat of its earlier decision — vacated by the Supreme Court — that Guantanamo prisoners had no constitutional rights. The Justices had ordered reconsideration of that conclusion. Instead of ruling anew on the legal challenges, the Circuit Court opted for an immunity finding. The Supreme Court’s denial of review does not stand as a precedent on that point, or on the substance of the ex-prisoners’ challenges.

As Adam Serwer points out, SCOTUS’ refusal to review the immunity ruling once again deprives the American justice system of a definitive ruling that torture is wrong.

This case, Rasul v. Rumsfeld, was important not just because of the alleged abuse involved. It’s important because civil liberties groups are seeking, as Ben Wizner of the ACLU, who is one of the lawyers in the Mohamed, et al. v. Jeppesen, rendition case, said last week, a “binding definitive determination” from the courts that the kind of treatment suspected terror detainees were subjected to under the Bush administration was illegal.
Without one, government sanctioned torture may make a comeback.

But I guess Rummy and the others who facilitated torture like it that way.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/12/14/scotus-rummy-is-immune-in-torture-suit/

[dixiegrrrrl]

38. Triple ARRRGGHHHH.

your article points out some of the more subtler implications.
Thanks for sharing it.
:hi:

[treestar]

35. What was the legal issue

There are pages and pages of briefs there. I refuse to get riled up by this type of baiting. We'd have to read all of the briefs and figure out the issues and find the context and figure out who the parties are and what the dispute is about.

[JDPriestly]

40. Helpful hint. I think it is in the amicus brief from the U.S. Attorney's office.

I haven't gone to the website you cite, but I read this information on DU last week. The amicus brief from the U.S.

[izzybeans]

45. Obama dropped the term Enemy Combatant

...this thread doesn't make sense.

It looks like that quote in the OP is referencing their logic for dropping it. IMHO.

[JDPriestly]

39. This is reprehensible. At this I can only say, Obama double-crossed us but good.

[Subdivisions]

41. Detainees, guilty or not, are not persons. But coroporations are. What a world... n/t

[izzybeans]

42. Does this square with the idea that Obama dropped use of the term Enemy Combatant.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4988312/Obama-drops-enemy-combatant-term-to-describe-terror-suspects.html

[Generator]

46. Obama has a new Guantanamo

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/15/obama-plans-to-hold-detai_n_392907.html

The Obama administration plans to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely at the newly-assigned facility in Thomson, Illinois, senior administration officials told reporters on Tuesday. In addition, President Obama will likely ask Congress for the authority to hold people indefinitely without charges at the domestic location.

The White House ordered the federal government on Tuesday to acquire the prison facility that currently exists at Thomson for the purpose of housing federal inmates as well as a "limited number" of terrorist detainees. The facility will be converted first into a "supermax" -- safer than the one that currently exists in Florence, Colorado.

Among the detainees destined for the site are those the president has described as untriable (either in criminal or military court) and unreleasable to a foreign country.

[Luciferous]

49. K&R I can't take anymore "change" nt

[Mithreal]

51. There is a tipping point coming in the support of this administraion.

[Solly Mack]

52. Sick country

[azul]

53. Why are they putting state secrets ahead of the rule of law?

When the courts and justice dept are complicit in promoting and covering up crimes, why should any citizen still respect laws?
---------------


U.S. Law Prohibits Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Any practice of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by United States officials violates international human rights standards to which the United States is a party. These include the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the Torture Convention), and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.1

The use of torture also violates U.S. law. In 1994, Congress passed a new federal law which specifically provides for penalties including fines and up to 20 years' imprisonment for acts of torture committed by American or other officials outside the United States. In cases where torture results in death of the victim, the sentence is life imprisonment or execution.2

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/detainees/prohibits_torture.aspx