Saturday, July 29, 2006
Illegality Looking for a Law
Contrary to White House assurances that everything they did to enemy combatants was perfectly legal, it looks like the Bush administration is now scared of being charged in the future with war crimes.
The Washington Post reports that a “law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes."
Hell, they ain't afraid of being accused, they're scared out their gore of being CONVICTED!
Maybe Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should have thought about that before his too-cute-by-half advice to start calling them enemy combants and do away with the Geneva Convention.
Oh, please give us a legal shield, anything but hold us accountable! Why laws are for everyone else but us (you know, the priviledged few).In light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that the international Conventions apply to the treatment of detainees in the terrorism fight, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has spoken privately with Republican lawmakers about the need for such "protections," according to someone who heard his remarks last week.
But...with the latest flare-up in Lebanon, the on-going violence in Iraq and the surging insurgency in Afghanistan, Howling Latina wonders if Bush and Company are going to have enough time to whip up the needed votes before the fall elections to give them their precious shield.
I mean, why in God's green little acre would Democrats allow a vote on the Senate floor and give the White House legal shelter?
And it's not like the United States hasn't faced heavy-duty enemies before. If the U.S. was able to face down the Evil Empire during the last half of the 20th century, HL doesn't think they need to scrap the Geneva Convention for the latest enemy crew, just because Junior doesn't want to face the legal music.
"The military has lived with" the Geneva Conventions provisions "for 50 years and applied them to every conflict, even against irregular forces. Why are we suddenly afraid now about the vagueness of its terms?" asked Tom Malinowski, director of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch.Indeed, the law was initially “intended…for use against future abusers of captured U.S. troops in countries such as Bosnia, El Salvador and Somalia.”
[T[he Pentagon supported making its provisions applicable to U.S. pesonnel because doing so set a high standard for others to follow. Mary DeRosa, a legal adviser at the National Security Council from 1997 to 2001, said the threat of sanctions in U.S. courts in fact helped deter senior officials from approving some questionable actions. She said the law is not an impediment in the terrorism fight.Oh dear....looks like history and the pesky facts are against the criminal gang at the White House.
The Associated Press reports that Bush wants the power to hold any American "suspected of terror ties...indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration."
Can you hear and see poor Lady Liberty crying?
// posted by Howling Latina @ 2:19 PM 
