CIA not bound to humane policy: Gonzales

[struggle4progress]

OUT OF REACH: The candidate for head of the US Justice Department is claiming regulations on prisoner treatment don't always apply overseas

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , Washington
Thursday, Jan 20, 2005,Page 7

Officers of the CIA and other nonmilitary personnel fall outside the bounds of a 2002 directive issued by US President George W. Bush that pledged the humane treatment of prisoners in American custody, Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel, said in documents that were released on Tuesday.

In written responses to questions posed by senators as part of his confirmation for attorney general, Gonzales also said a separate congressional ban on cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment had "a limited reach" and furthermore that the congressional ban did not apply in all cases to "aliens overseas." <snip>

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/01/20/2003220191

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. in other words

all we have to do is transfer prisoners to CIA custody and anything can happen to them.

[flamin lib]

2. Oh, but

the Supreme Court ruled that detainees have the right to a hearing if they request it. 'Course they were in custody for years before that decision came down and now they've probably quit asking for representation don'cha think?

[struggle4progress]

4. Prisoners' Dilemma

How the administration is obstructing the Supreme Court's terror decisions.
By Phillip Carter
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2004, at 1:47 PM PT

<snip> When the Supreme Court stepped in last June with the last word on the legality of such wartime practices, observers (including me) had a right to hope that the administration would cease its foot-dragging and finally conform its policies to the demands of the justices and the rule of law.

The Bush administration dashed that hope last month with a series of actions concerning detainees from the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq. In a court filing on Friday, the administration announced its intention to deny Guantanamo Bay detainees full access to counsel to prepare their habeas corpus petitions and signaled that it would resume its relentless legal tactics to fight the detainees in the courts on a host of procedural issues. <snip>

In its Rasul decision, the Supreme Court recognized the Gitmo detainees' right to file a writ of habeas corpus in federal court. But the high court never said this had to be a meaningful right to habeas corpus, nor did it define the practical parameters of such a right. Issues like the right to counsel and the proper location for habeas corpus suits were left to the imagination. Not surprisingly, the administration has seized on this ambiguity to resume its post-9/11 legal offensive in the courts. The essence of the legal strategy is to litigate every single procedural and technical issue to the full extent of the law, using the vast resources of the Justice Department to delay judicial action as long as possible. The implicit purpose is clear: to delay justice so that detainees can be held and squeezed for intelligence.

The Justice Department's lawyers make no attempt to hide this legal strategy. In footnote 14 of their filing before the federal district court in Washington, D.C., in Al-Odah v. United States, the administration's lawyers explicitly reserve the right to litigate niggling procedural issues, such as whether this is the proper defendant in a habeas corpus action, and the proper location for such suits. <snip>

http://slate.msn.com/id/2104715/

[whosinpower]

3. It is what the Nazi's

used as well. I just read an article stating as such. I will try to find it.....
Here - http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7783.htm

Bush Administration, Gonzales Revive Nazi Legal Arguments

snip - Horton: Let's just start at the threshold question: Do the Geneva Conventions apply to the conflict? From the outset Nazi leaders talked dismissively of the Geneva Conventions and looked for ways to avoid them.

They looked for technical exceptions. And the arguments that were advanced, are essentially identical to the arguments that are made in Judge Gonzales's memorandum of Jan. 25, 2002: First, the adversary didn't sign the Convention, and therefore the adversary is not entitled to its protections. And in this case, you have the Soviet Union, which, of course, was not a state party to the Geneva Convention.

And then, secondly, all the demonization of the Russians as "Bolshevik terrorists" was trotted out: That these people, they are terrorists, and therefore, in the language of the Geneva Convention, "they don't abide by the rules of war." And therefore, you can not fight a modern war against terrorists, under the rules of this Convention. And we see a specific argument being trotted out, about the "obsolescence" of the Convention; it's being described and denigrated as the "product of a notion of chivalry of a bygone era."

EIR: Who said that?

Horton: That was Gen. Field Marshal Keitel.

And he said that in response to the famous memorandum that was written by Helmuth von Moltke.


Much much more at link - and an excellent read.

[struggle4progress]

6. Bingo. eom

[Jack Rabbit]

5. This is what Gonzales and the other Bushies have been arguing all along

This is exactly why the Gonzales nomination should be defeated and Gonzales, along with other Bush administration officials -- including Mr. Bush himself -- should be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.