Whose ass is getting covered?
Aug. 12th, 2006 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI've been railing about torture for a long time. I've been against it, professionally (as opposed to intellectually), for almost 15 years. My opposition has led some to call me a left-wing radical. So be it. I think it morally wrong, and I don't see any reason to trim my sails on this just because a lot of people have their panties in a twist and watched a couple too many cop shows where the bad was beaten into confessing.
I've also been saying the War Crimes Act of 1996 gives all the needed ammo to prosecute people who practice it (even the guys from Blackwater, and the the like, who seem to have immunity from all laws, because they are not in the military; and so are exempt from the UCMJ, and not in the US, and have been exempted from local law [which means, technically, if I cap one, I can be hanged, but if they cap a soldier, the worst that can be done is to send them home as persona non grata]) because it says that things done overseas are covered by it.
For some reason the present administration seems loathe to use this tool.
But not to ammend it.
According to the AP
The White House, without elaboration, said in a statement that the bill "will apply to any conduct by any U.S. personnel, whether committed before or after the law is enacted."
Two attorneys said that the draft is in the revision stage but that the administration seems intent on pushing forward the draft's major points in Congress after Labor Day. The two attorneys spoke on condition of anonymity because their sources did not authorize them to release the information.
"I think what this bill can do is in effect immunize past crimes. That's why it's so dangerous," said a third attorney, Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice.
Fidell said the initiative is "not just protection of political appointees, but also CIA personnel who led interrogations."
What I see in it isn't the protection of the guys twisting fingers and using TA-312s to zap people, no. What I see is the guys who wrote the memos, who drafted the policy letters, who told Colonels, to tell sergeants to do the dirty deeds feeling the chilling effects of a subpoena coming down the pike at some time in the future.
The present mood of the country isn't so pleasant. Bush has an approval rating in the 30s. Cheney, well I think he's still in double digits, but it's been as low as 13, so that's not saying much.
Lieberman lost his primary, and there are rumors swirling about that the Republican Party is expecting to lose either the House, or the Sentate, and perhaps both (which might be good, might be bad, it depends on just how the members look to use the powers being in the Majority gives them; certainly they've not known how to be an effective Minority, but I digress). They are probably looking at losing a couple of gubenatorial races.
So perhaps someone with a conscience, and a sense of justice, might decide to look into the details of how the "abberations" came to be.
JAG has been against torture (and the proposed tribunals, and the ignoring of the Geneva Conventions, and, and, and...) from the get-go. Which, I think, is part of why things have been going so slowly; it's like trying to get a doctor to administer a legal injection... no matter that the law says it's ok, they won't do it.
So this shit comes down the pike, insulating those who made it happen, as well as those who did it; and there's no way in hell that a law specifically going after them is going to pass, if this thing does. You can bet the Republicans will be able to hold enough party discipline to keep a filibuster going.
I've also been saying the War Crimes Act of 1996 gives all the needed ammo to prosecute people who practice it (even the guys from Blackwater, and the the like, who seem to have immunity from all laws, because they are not in the military; and so are exempt from the UCMJ, and not in the US, and have been exempted from local law [which means, technically, if I cap one, I can be hanged, but if they cap a soldier, the worst that can be done is to send them home as persona non grata]) because it says that things done overseas are covered by it.
For some reason the present administration seems loathe to use this tool.
But not to ammend it.
According to the AP
The White House, without elaboration, said in a statement that the bill "will apply to any conduct by any U.S. personnel, whether committed before or after the law is enacted."
Two attorneys said that the draft is in the revision stage but that the administration seems intent on pushing forward the draft's major points in Congress after Labor Day. The two attorneys spoke on condition of anonymity because their sources did not authorize them to release the information.
"I think what this bill can do is in effect immunize past crimes. That's why it's so dangerous," said a third attorney, Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice.
Fidell said the initiative is "not just protection of political appointees, but also CIA personnel who led interrogations."
What I see in it isn't the protection of the guys twisting fingers and using TA-312s to zap people, no. What I see is the guys who wrote the memos, who drafted the policy letters, who told Colonels, to tell sergeants to do the dirty deeds feeling the chilling effects of a subpoena coming down the pike at some time in the future.
The present mood of the country isn't so pleasant. Bush has an approval rating in the 30s. Cheney, well I think he's still in double digits, but it's been as low as 13, so that's not saying much.
Lieberman lost his primary, and there are rumors swirling about that the Republican Party is expecting to lose either the House, or the Sentate, and perhaps both (which might be good, might be bad, it depends on just how the members look to use the powers being in the Majority gives them; certainly they've not known how to be an effective Minority, but I digress). They are probably looking at losing a couple of gubenatorial races.
So perhaps someone with a conscience, and a sense of justice, might decide to look into the details of how the "abberations" came to be.
JAG has been against torture (and the proposed tribunals, and the ignoring of the Geneva Conventions, and, and, and...) from the get-go. Which, I think, is part of why things have been going so slowly; it's like trying to get a doctor to administer a legal injection... no matter that the law says it's ok, they won't do it.
So this shit comes down the pike, insulating those who made it happen, as well as those who did it; and there's no way in hell that a law specifically going after them is going to pass, if this thing does. You can bet the Republicans will be able to hold enough party discipline to keep a filibuster going.
