The CIA asked for it; Ashcroft’s department delivered it; White House counsel read it; Rumsfeld’s Pentagon reviewed it. Oh, but only ”a few bad eggs” engaged in torture.
The President of the United States can declare anyone an ”enemy combatitant.” As such, you will be held incommunicado without any rights. You can be tortured and killed. Just what is Bush protecting us from? mjh
Memo Offered Justification for Use of Torture
Justice Dept. Gave Advice in 2002
By Dana Priest and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
In August 2002, the Justice Department advised the White House that torturing al Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad ”may be justified,” and that international laws against torture ”may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations” conducted in President Bush’s war on terrorism, according to a newly obtained memo. [mjh: re-read this — ANTI-torture laws may be UN-constitutional.]
If a government employee were to torture a suspect in captivity, ”he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the Al Qaeda terrorist network,” said the memo, from the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel, written in response to a CIA request for legal guidance. …
The memo seems to counter the pre-Sept. 11, 2001, assumption that U.S. government personnel would never be permitted to torture captives. …
[The memo] was later used in a March 2003 report by Pentagon lawyers assessing interrogation rules governing the Defense Department’s detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At that time, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had asked the lawyers to examine the logistical, policy and legal issues associated with interrogation techniques. …
[T]he 2002 and 2003 memos reflect the Bush administration’s desire to explore the limits on how far it could legally go in aggressively interrogating foreigners suspected of terrorism or of having information that could thwart future attacks. …
”It is by leaps and bounds the worst thing I’ve seen since this whole Abu Ghraib scandal broke,” said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. ”It appears that what they were contemplating was the commission of war crimes and looking for ways to avoid legal accountability. The effect is to throw out years of military doctrine and standards on interrogations.” …
At the time, the Justice Department’s legal analysis, however, shocked some of the military lawyers who were involved in crafting the new guidelines, said senior defense officials and military lawyers. …
”It’s really unprecedented. For almost 30 years we’ve taught the Geneva Convention one way,” said a senior military attorney. ”Once you start telling people it’s okay to break the law, there’s no telling where they might stop.”
A U.S. law enacted in 1994 bars torture by U.S. military personnel anywhere in the world. But the Pentagon group’s report, prepared under the supervision of General Counsel William J. Haynes II, said that ”in order to respect the President’s inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign . . . [the prohibition against torture] must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority.”
The Pentagon group’s report, divulged yesterday by the Wall Street Journal and obtained by The Post, said further that the 1994 law barring torture ”does not apply to the conduct of U.S. personnel” at Guantanamo Bay.
It also said the anti-torture law did apply to U.S. military interrogations that occurred outside U.S. ”maritime and territorial jurisdiction,” such as in Iraq or Afghanistan. But it said both Congress and the Justice Department would have difficulty enforcing the law if U.S. military personnel could be shown to be acting as a result of presidential orders.
mjh’s Weblog Entry – 02/13/2003: “Bush Endorses Assassination”
President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union speech:
”All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let’s put it this way, they are no longer a problem for the United States and our friends and allies.”
Please note the word ”suspected.” In what used to be America, a suspect was presumed innocent until proven guilty. Now, suspicion is a death sentence.
”One by one, the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice.”
Aren’t we all. mjh