I know these guys mean well. I think they have more courage than most in the military, and most of the rest of the US government, for standing up and publicly opposing the White House’s plans for legalized torture, secret prisons, and kangaroo courts.
But SHEESH, what did they THINK would be done with the letter they signed at the invitation of the CIA? A letter that would appear (to a bad speed reader, and DC is full of them) to support Bush’s position on the legislation before the House and Senate.
I for one am shocked, shocked that copies would be passed in the halls of Congress, along with the spun-up iterpretation that “the military lawyers have seen the light”.
The adminstration has been pitching the idea of “clarifying” the laws, and the legal eagles come along to sign off on a letter saying “clarification is good”, and the administration says “SEE! They get it now.”
:smack:
:smack: :smack:
:smack: :smack: :smack:
The military lawyers are supposedly very upset that their letter is being so used, but with one exception they won’t speak in record because of one or another form of pressure.
Apparently I am a particularly bad speed reader too, but then I did live in DC for terlvr years. My apologies, I misread Haynes as Hayden and assumed it as the DCI.
If I were Emily Litella I would say, “That’s very different. Never mind.”
But actually it’s not very different, since it’s just a matter of who shoved the letter in front of their faces. Actually their signing would have been more explicable had it been a top guy like Hayden putting pressure on them, rather than a familiar peer who they had been arguing with for years.
I don’t think this will be too serious. Warner can call the JAGs to appear before the Armed Services Committee where they will have ample opportunity to qualify their intent in signing the letter.
“Clarify the law” is just as ambiguous as “degrading treatment” and the Senate’s version can make things just as clear as that of the administration or the House.
Courts and lawmakers are reluctent to make such things too specific. If a specific list of banned actions is provided, they, not having the exact details on what is now being done, could come up with an incomplete list. In that case it can be argued, correctly, that whatever isn’t specifically banned is allowed.
There’s a lot about this torture mess that I don’t get. First of all, there’s that colonel who acted crazy and fired a gun into the air to get an Iraqi prisoner to spill the beans on a genuine threat to our military forces. The colonel was punished for this. The guys doing the waterboarding and other things don’t seem to have come up with any useful info, nor does anything seem to have happened to them. Nor do I understand the fuss about making torture illegal since it could somehow prevent our soldiers from finding out if some group has WMDs. I find it very, very, hard to believe that if our troops captured a terrorist and there was clear evidence that he’d been in contact with WMDs that they’d worry about such a law if he wouldn’t tell them where the weapons were. Nor do I think that they’d have to worry about punishment if word of it got out. (Something that I think would be highly unlikely.)
I never said that I thought the law was a bad idea. Nor do I see how it’ll make things any different for our troops. As I recall, during Gulf War 1.0 our troops that were captured were tortured, even though there were no allegations about us torturing Iraqis.
Again, I’m not advocating that our troops be allowed to torture by law. I’m simply stating that if our troops capture an AQ operative with nuclear materials in his possession and he refuses to talk, I don’t think that the soldiers are going to calmly sit there while he refuses to answer questions. That’s a big difference than capturing some grunt armed with an AK-47 and torturing him. I’d imagine that most of our troops would have no interest in torturing him.
