Easy. They aren’t “prisoners of war”. They’re “enemy combatants”. Or they were, under Bush.
Next you’ll be asking for the difference, won’t you? Hamlet is doubtlessly better prepared to provide that explanation, but apparently it is based on the expected duration of the war.
Well, you’re assuming that waterboarding is cruel treatment and torture, as a self-evident fact. I may agree with that conclusion, personally, but what do the court cases, if any, dealing with the Geneva Conventions say? how are the phrases “cruel treatment and torture” to be interpreted? I don’t have any knowledge of those issues - I’m just suggesting that what you’ve posted so far isn’t enough for me to agree that it’s clear and obvious that Bybee said that something illegal was actually legal.
You may be right, but so far, I would want a much more detailed argument in support before I would agree with your conclusion.
Give him credit for creativity, at least. Gonzales was reduced to dismissing the Geneva Conventions, despite their constituting US law, on the basis that they’re “quaint” and “obsolete”.
I’ve heard before that “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” What specific provisions would exempt a federal employee from the law on this, regardless of whether their superiors told them it was ok?
This was all very obviously illegal when they first started talking about it and doing it. Did they really imagine that they were going to be able to travel freely about the world without ever having to answer for these charges?
The “world” is one thing and something these guys will never answer for in another country (ala Kissinger I think).
In this country they deserve it but political considerations seems to shield them.
Hence my question if their professional organization could disbar them.
That is not jail but seems a good signal and maybe (perhaps, possibly) it can motivate and/or clear the way to some extent to see further justice done.
So far I have seen nothing to indicate one way or the other if a Bar Association could disbar them. My sense so far is they could but probably won’t. Whether it is just politics that stops them or a can of worms to they do not want to open (setting a precedent busting attorneys for opinions) I cannot tell yet.
Some great questions, hard questions, have been asked here but surprisingly no one is really tackling them (unfortunately our legal eagles are likely the only ones really qualified to answer and they seem to be…careful…with this one).
It’s all part of the grand conspiracy. Lawyers are the modern equivalent of the clergy of old. The last thing they want is a populace who understands what they do in any meaningful way. As long as the mystery remains the lawyers exert a level of control they otherwise likely would not have.