more on Proposed War Crimes Act protection for Bush

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross () stapleton-gray com>
Date: August 10, 2006 12:00:16 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
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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