The US not being a ratifier, President Clinton’s signature notwithstanding,
[quote]
might not matter anyway
The UK *is * a signatory. One of the new Iraq governments now emerging could sign as well.
The OP’s assertion that the law is intended to “protect Bush” is only arguably false if one is, as is habitual for a few here, limiting one’s consideration to the narrow, technical legal realm only. In the political realm, and in the historical-legacy realm that must now be preying on him, it is not at all ridiculous to suppose he wants not to go down as a law-flouting, torturing, warmonger.
Even if you think he has such impermeable self-righteousness as not to be worried about that, there are still upcoming elections in which his precious lapdogs in Congress are about to go back into the minority, and Turdblossom is no doubt telling him to cool that shit until after Election Day.
Damn right it’s about protecting himself. Why else would he “be against torture after he was for it”, as Kerry has just said? Because he suddenly started caring about it? Please.
May we have a bit of pragmatism here, Elvis? Of course the OP is referring to Bush being tried, in the narrow, technical legal realm as a war criminal. Of course, that won’t happen. How he goes down in history is another story entirely, and I suspect it will please both of us.
The moment you switched from “international law” to applying the laws of particular nations to the conflict…
My original objection was the claim that there were international law “felonies” that Bush was guilty of. Now we’ve abandoned that, and are considering if his conduct was somehow illegal under the laws of France, or Spain, or some other specific nation. At that point, I concede the possibility, but point out the practical impossibility.
I’ve already pointed this out, only to be roundly ignored, but the War Crimes Act of 1996 makes “grave violations” of the Geneva Convention a felony.
Now, I am fully aware I am linking to an article that originally appeared in gasp the Nation. But it has a brief, readable, and intelligent overview of what I think the OP is talking about. Maybe this time you’ll pay attention.
According to this article, Bush has already agreed to drop waterboarding from the proposed legislation. Since that seems to to be the most serious charge that could be leveled agsint him or anyone in the administration, that significantly undermines the “they’re jsut trying to cover their asses” hypothesis. No?
Gee, that’s swell! Boy, there’s a standard we can be proud of! All we need to do is set the appropriate standards of savagery, how brutal we can be before we and still maintain our standards of, ah, decency. And there’s a wealth of information and ideas available, now that the KGB archives are open! They probably know some dandy little tricks! You know, go to the experts!
What Bush claims to want is legal “clarity”, alleging “vagueness” in what would seem to most reasonable humans to bepretty clear statements in the Conventions. Could that mean he wants a specific list of specific activities defined as outlawed for the purpose of implicitly declaring anything not specifically listed as legal? It would be simply prompting the interrogation community to think up new torture techniques not on the list, so it would be possible to reply to any criticism of their violating the standards against cruel or inhumane treatment with “Hey, they’re not on the list, so they must be okay, right?”
Anybody else have a more realistic hypothesis for what he means by this “clarity” stuff?
Given my understanding of the Hamdan ruling, treaties that the US enters into are US law, and thus what had been taking place was illegal by US law. So in total, the laws broken are the Geneva Convention’s third article as well as probably the McCain Detainee Amendment and probably various bits of the UCMJ.
I freely admit to having no idea what the penalties are for ordering the laws of the land to be broken, but I would imagine that getting kicked out of office would be in there.
I think you’re saying that in the legal version of a vacuum.
Regardless of whether he can actually be charged with any sort of “masterminding” felony or not, if the public is and politics of the situation turn negative, that’s a bad thing for him, and most probably something could be found (however obscure it may be) to charge him with. At the moment, every single piece of law, international and domestic in regards to torture is that it is 100% illegal. In light of that, whatever charge was brought to be, he would lose.
Now, of course since he’s the president he would probably just be forced to quit the office, so he would never be taken to court to lose. But still the end effect is the same.
But if he did get the illegality of torture repealed, no one is ever going to charge him with anything. A crime can be just as illegal as you could ever want and it doesn’t matter if no one will charge you. Certainly by legal standards he would still be guilty, but again, the end effect is that he had been absolved.
So while you may be correct on a technical level, I think there’s a whole lot of real world politics that you’re glossing over.
It just struck me that the entirety of your first post was nothing more than semantic nitpicking over the term “felony”, and you had your supporters ragging on the OP for it. I thought you were completely unfair, in your usual smarmy way, to the OP, and you didn’t go any farther other than to trot out the fact there is no International Criminal Code. Nevertheless, there are violations of international law, and there are criminal prosecutions for them. There is also US law that codifies those more heinous actions that violate the Geneva Convention.
Great, so we can agree that “It IS my intention to dismiss the rather silly idea that the proposed legislation is intended to protect Bush.” is baloney? Will the OP get an apology?
Given the huge mountain of PRACTICAL barriers that stands in the way of a potential criminal prosecution, I refuse to accept the idea that the administration is fearful of a successful criminal prosecution of the president and is offering up these proposals to block same. It’s not impossible. It’s merely so highly unlikely as to be absurd.
I agree it is incredibly unlikely Bush would be prosecuted for any of this. And your point?
What, do you suppose, is the intent of this administration in trying to change the law? It seems to me there is no purpose, except to allow this administration and its personnel, to avoid prosecution for this and any future violations of the Geneva Convention. As par for the course, this administration doesn’t care two whits about the law and violate it with impunity. Only after the information comes to light that there may be a criminal violation do they come forward and attempt to change the law.
Domestically prosecuting Bush for violations of the Geneva Convention can qualify as “silly”. It would be political suicide for any prosecutor, and there isn’t, nor will there likely ever be, enough evidence to gain a conviction. Same as the NSA surveillance. But in both cases, the pratical problems with prosecution does nothing to ameliorate this administration’s violations of the law.
The sloppy ready might very well read more into it than that. I wanted to make it clear that my post in no way was implying what you pulled out of thin air for whatever purpose.
I think people are too quick to use the argument that there can be no other reason than “x” for “y” to be done. As I mentioned above, why would they deliberately pull out of the legislation the practice for which they would be most vulnerable to prosecution if avoiding prosecution was their primary motive? Perhaps Bush just wants to rush something thru Congress now so that he can maintain the ability to use “aggresive interogation” techniques in the future and he wants to lock that in while he has a nonimally friendly Congress.
Additionally, after the election Congress might pass legislation which puts even more restrictions on Bush and he thinks they’ll be hesitant to repeal any legislation passed now. People will say they’re not for torture, but when push comes to shove, I think a majority of Americans will want the president to have more flexibility rather than less concerning “agressive interogation” techniques. This can actually be a wedge issue in the election, and he’s pissed that his own party is thwarting his efforts to use it as one.
In short, there are no lack of other reasons for Bush doing this. And, as **Bricker **pointed out, the near zero probability that he’d ever actually be procescuted makes your explanation a rather strained one in the first place.
Let me requote myself, with bolding: "It seems to me there is no purpose, except to allow this administration and its personnel, to avoid prosecution for this and any future violations of the Geneva Convention. You have a point. Enacting new legislation would serve the purpose of allowing this country to violate the Geneva Convention and torture prisoners in the future, and not just to cover his tracks for past “indiscretions.” It’s win win. Or lose, lose if you are appalled by torture.
I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily “strained”, but it is certainly a fringe benefit for this administration. Not just for Bush, he’ll never be prosecuted, but for the ones who actually are conducting these acts.
None of which changes the fact it’s reprehensible.
Picking up rumors that one of the AlQ heavyweights we’re so proud of is starkers. Question arises as to whether he was that way when we got him, or was induced.