Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Thursday, September 07, 2006
CYA
Doesn't this flurry of "detainee" stuff have the smell of plugging the legal loopholes prior to the election? Afterall, what will happen if a Democrat majority is in either/both the Senate/House regarding torture during the GWOT? Froomkin:
He was, in fact, calling for the CIA to continue to be allowed to use interrogation tactics that many people would reasonably consider torture; he was demanding retroactive legal immunity for American interrogators who used tactics that many people would reasonably consider torture; he was calling for the unprecedented admission of coerced evidence in an American legal proceeding; and after all those years of refusing to give Congress any role in this matter, he was insisting that they take action in a matter of days.
And how about this:
As I explain below, however, that's only half the story, because the draft Administration bill would (i) retroactively legalize all the unlawful acts that were approved and performed from 2001 to the present day (see section 9, page 86); (ii) would cut off all judicial review of U.S. compliance with the Geneva Conventions (section 6(b), page 79); and, most importantly, (iii) would authorize the CIA -- and, for that matter, other agencies, including DoD itself -- to engage in what the President today euphemistically referred to as the CIA's "alternative set of [interrogation] procedures."
I've haven't written much about torture lately. It's become mainstream that American's torture prisoners and that the administration thumbs it's nose at due process and the constitution. I'm not sure Bush will ever be held to account, even if Dems have a majority somewhere. The damage has been done and will take generations to repair no matter what American's do in the short term. In short, I feel pretty hopeless about the whole issue until the repair can begin .... when Bush is gone.

As my wife always says, "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission".
Written at 9:24 AM by Greyhair.
1 comments
1 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
James Baker is working on helping him with Iraq. This might be part of the clean up operation. Baker is a lawyer.

I believe that he is trying to cover his backside with these announcements, minimize the damage.

I hope it means that they are genuinely afraid of prosecution. That would be a plus.
2:20 PM  
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