Reply #3: Anxious, incurious, who knows? [View All]

[babylonsister]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1177828&mesg_id=1177828

Geneva rules forbade not only torture but also, in equally categorical terms, the use of "violence," "cruel treatment" or "humiliating and degrading treatment" against a detainee "at any time and in any place whatsoever." The War Crimes Act of 1996 made any grave breach of those restrictions a U.S. felony . The best defense against such a charge, Addington wrote, would combine a broad presidential direction for humane treatment, in general, with an assertion of unrestricted authority to make exceptions.

The vice president's counsel proposed that President Bush issue a carefully ambiguous directive. Detainees would be treated "humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of" the Geneva Conventions. When Bush issued his public decision two weeks later, on Feb. 7, 2002, he adopted Addington's formula -- with all its room for maneuver -- verbatim.

From here:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/pushing_the_envelope_on_presi/index.html