Easing of laws that led to detainee abuse hatched in secret

[DogPoundPup]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The framework under which detainees were imprisoned for years without charges at Guantanamo and in many cases abused in Afghanistan wasn't the product of American military policy or the fault of a few rogue soldiers.

It was largely the work of five White House, Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers who, following the orders of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, reinterpreted or tossed out the U.S. and international laws that govern the treatment of prisoners in wartime, according to former U.S. defense and Bush administration officials.

The Supreme Court now has struck down many of their legal interpretations. It ruled last Thursday that preventing detainees from challenging their detention in federal courts was unconstitutional.

The quintet of lawyers, who called themselves the “War Council," drafted legal opinions that circumvented the military's code of justice, the federal court system and America's international treaties in order to prevent anyone — from soldiers on the ground to the president — from being held accountable for activities that at other times have been considered war crimes.

Sen. Carl Levin, who's leading an investigation into the origins of the harsh interrogation techniques, said at a hearing Tuesday that the abuse wasn't the result of "a few bad apples" within the military, as the White House has claimed. "The truth is that senior officials in the United States government sought information on aggressive techniques, twisted the law to create the appearance of their legality and authorized their use against detainees," said Levin, a Michigan Democrat.

The international conventions that the United States helped draft, and to which it's a party, were abandoned in secret meetings among the five men in one another's offices. No one in the War Council has publicly described the group's activities in any detail, and only some of their opinions and memorandums have been made public.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38886.html

---

[SpiralHawk]

1. Republicons are, like, totally into occultism

Which is suck a skanky 'family value'...

[hootinholler]

7. Your typo is actually quite funny

I had a vision of some fundie saying suck my family value.

-Hoot

[SpiralHawk]

2. All this directed by a VP war profiteer with Five Military Deferments

and the republicon Have More base just loves him, and Commander AWOL.

Twisted. Putrid. Cowardly. Anti-American. Republicon all the way.

[tanyev]

3. Hey, we finally found the bad apples.

It was largely the work of five White House, Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers who, following the orders of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, reinterpreted or tossed out the U.S. and international laws that govern the treatment of prisoners in wartime, according to former U.S. defense and Bush administration officials.

[formercia]

6. Connections

I would be very interested to find out who these members of the 'War Council' are and what if any organizations they might be affiliated with besides the US Government.

I smell a nest of right-wing reactionary rats. These 'lawyers' weren't selected at random, they were brought together because of their connections.

[UpInArms]

4. Gonzo headed that team, along with John Yoo

http://www.slate.com/features/whatistorture/LegalMemos.html

Released at approximately the same time as the Abu Ghraib photographs, the first internal legal memoranda written by various high-ranking officials in the Bush administration reveal the extent to which legal methods and language have framed the discussion about what constitutes torture and to whom the new rules apply. While the public expressed outrage at the photographic evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib, the writers and architects of U.S. torture policy have been largely forgiven. Many have been promoted. There is something about bare-bones legal analysis that immunizeseven sterilizesthe contents of the message.

Lawyers write memos for many reasons to bounce ideas around, to elicit criticism and feedback, and to test novel ideas for the first time. What's most striking about these torture memos is their ideological consistency. Almost from the outset the principal ideas were setthat the Geneva Conventions might not apply to some prisoners; that torture could be defined narrowly so as to permit egregious conduct as long as the "intent" was not to violate the law; that conduct prohibited under national and international law could be redefined as permissible. A few critics raised objections along the wayand some of the more questionable practices were eventually halted. But for the most part, these memos reveal a remarkable and uniform willingness up and down the ranks to accept a rather extreme doctrinal and definitional view of torture. They suggest a party line, as opposed to a dialogue.

Another striking aspect of the torture memos is the secrecy that surrounded them. We would not know about most of these documents were it not for leaks, Freedom of Information Act requests, and subsequent investigations. There is, to be sure, an urgent need for a national conversation about which interrogation techniques are effective and necessary under exigent circumstances in an age of terror. But these memos reveal what happens when that conversation takes place in secret, within the echo chamber of the administration.

here's the pdf on "What is torture" written by Yoo

http://www.slate.com/features/whatistorture/pdfs/020109.pdf

[Amonester]

5. abandoned in secret...

"abandoned in secret meetings among the five men in one another's offices"

that's not the true meaning of "Democracy" to me...

my WWII hero of a Dad must be spinning in his grave. :mad:

send these five fascists to The Hague.

[aquart]

8. And what are we going to do about it?

[redqueen]

10. Exactly.

Whatever they do... it needs to come to a head AFTER bush is out of office, to avoid having every one of them simply pardoned.

[Supersedeas]

9. Yoo, Bybee, Beaver, and Hayes should all be remembered for this legal

contribution to this.

[DCKit]

11. The double-speak legalese in their memos, excusing torture...

is beyond the pale of anything I have ever seen in any legal argument. TV shows have better researched stories than these asshats expect will cover their asses when they're dragged in front of a tribunal.

Directly and intentionally contravening the Constitution and international agreements is TREASON and needs to be treated as such.

If full investigations of these crimes doesn't begin within the first hundred days of the next administration, I'm moving to a more comfortable, safer fascist state.

[maddezmom]

12. kick

[maddezmom]

13. kick

[Hissyspit]

14. McClatchy: Easing of Laws that Led to Detainee Abuse Hatched in Secret

Source: McClatchy

Easing of laws that led to detainee abuse hatched in secret

By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The framework under which detainees were imprisoned for years without charges at Guantanamo and in many cases abused in Afghanistan wasn't the product of American military policy or the fault of a few rogue soldiers. It was largely the work of five White House, Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers who, following the orders of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, reinterpreted or tossed out the U.S. and international laws that govern the treatment of prisoners in wartime, according to former U.S. defense and Bush administration officials.

The Supreme Court now has struck down many of their legal interpretations. It ruled last Thursday that preventing detainees from challenging their detention in federal courts was unconstitutional. The quintet of lawyers, who called themselves the “War Council," drafted legal opinions that circumvented the military's code of justice, the federal court system and America's international treaties in order to prevent anyone — from soldiers on the ground to the president — from being held accountable for activities that at other times have been considered war crimes.

Sen. Carl Levin, who's leading an investigation into the origins of the harsh interrogation techniques, said at a hearing Tuesday that the abuse wasn't the result of "a few bad apples" within the military, as the White House has claimed. "The truth is that senior officials in the United States government sought information on aggressive techniques, twisted the law to create the appearance of their legality and authorized their use against detainees," said Levin, a Michigan Democrat.

The international conventions that the United States helped draft, and to which it's a party, were abandoned in secret meetings among the five men in one another's offices. No one in the War Council has publicly described the group's activities in any detail, and only some of their opinions and memorandums have been made public.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38886.html

---

In addition, the McClatchy people list "MEMOS THAT PAVED THE WAY"

A handful of legal opinions opened the way to the abuses documented in McClatchy's investigation. Among them:

- In a Jan. 9, 2002, memorandum for Haynes, co-author Yoo opined that basic Geneva Convention protections known as Common Article Three forbidding humiliating and degrading treatment and torture of prisoners didn't cover alleged al Qaida or Taliban detainees — the entire incoming population of detainees in Afghanistan and Guantanamo.

- In a memorandum to Bush dated Jan. 25, 2002, Gonzales said that rescinding detainees' Geneva protections "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act." Doing so, Gonzales wrote, also would create a solid defense against prosecutors or independent counsels who may in the future "decide to pursue unwarranted charges based on Section 2441," the U.S. War Crimes Act, which prohibits violations of the Geneva Conventions. Gonzales added that by withholding Geneva protections and prisoner-of-war status, Bush could avoid case-by-case reviews of detainees' status.

- On Feb. 7, 2002, Bush issued a memorandum declaring that alleged al Qaida or Taliban members wouldn't be considered prisoners of war and, further, that they wouldn't be granted protection under Common Article Three. Most nations accept Article Three, common to all four Geneva Conventions, as customary law setting the minimum standard for conduct in any conflict, whether internal or international.

-An Aug. 1, 2002, memorandum that Gonzales requested from the Justice Department defined torture as "injury such as death, organ failure or serious impairment of body functions," a high bar for ruling interrogation techniques or detainee treatment illegal. U.S. law, according to the memorandum's analysis, "prohibits only extreme acts

MORE

[libnnc]

15. I will NOT let this sink

***T O R T U R E***


***W A R C R I M E S***


Gen. Taguba: Bush Administration Committed War Crimes

The Army general who first investigated the abuse at Abu Ghraib has accused the Bush administration of committing war crimes. Retired Major General Antonio Taguba made the comment in a new report about US torture practices. Taguba wrote, “The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture.” Taguba went on to say, “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” <snip>

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/19/headlines#1





Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Great Torture Scandal

McClatchy and other reporters are abruptly pulling the curtain away from the Bush team's illegal practices in arresting people arbitrarily, declining to offer proof that they were guilty of anything, detaining them indefinitely without trial or charges, and deliberately torturing them to the extent of leaving long-term scars and disabilities. The torture practices originated not with lower-level officers but with Donald Rumsfeld and others in Bush's inner circle, who then later blamed lower-level officials for developing the ideas that Rumsfeld ordered them to develop. Nothing they have done has survived a court challenge where one has been permitted.<snip>

http://www.juancole.com/2008/06/great-torture-scandal.html





A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command, according to congressional sources briefed on the findings.<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061602779.html

[defendandprotect]

17. Congress has the power of the purse and could/should have

16 months ago cut the White House off until they started releasing papers ---
secret documents --

We are all being tortured by this administration in a sense . . .
Democrats have done almost nothing to stop any of this!!!

[LiberalFighter]

16. following the orders of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney

reinterpreted or tossed out the U.S. and international laws

[alfredo]

18. Impeachment is not enough. War crime charges must be filed.

[FirstLight]

19. KICK & rec

This is so disgusting.... EVERY day new reports, papers released, findings of laws bent & broken for the benefit of some sociopathic criminals ... I am so done with it all.
WHY have we not seen the international community take action?
WHY have we not had anything happen here in our own congress?

greed, stupidity, fear? what?
:banghead:

If we want justice, are we ready to just take to the streets? what is it going to TAKE? and what do we do now?

anyone?


edit smiley

[FirstLight]

20. BTW

Thanks Hissyspit...you really have been bringing some great aticles and things into the light today ... lots to think about!

[Xipe Totec]

21. It was a close call in the Supreme court; 5-4 ruling

The White House failed to inject a fifth ringer into the playing field when Harriet Meyers was force to withdraw from consideration to the Supreme Court.

The game all along was to stack the Supreme Court first, then let the case go through.

They almost got away with it.