Bushists Draft Cover Our Ass Act to Reduce Threat of War Crime Prosecution

[BurtWorm]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/08/AR2006080801276.html?nav=rss_politics


War Crimes Act Changes Would Reduce Threat Of Prosecution

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 9, 2006; Page A01

The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments.

Officials say the amendments would alter a U.S. law passed in the mid-1990s that criminalized violations of the Geneva Conventions, a set of international treaties governing military conduct in wartime. The conventions generally bar the cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment of wartime prisoners without spelling out what all those terms mean.

The draft U.S. amendments to the War Crimes Act would narrow the scope of potential criminal prosecutions to 10 specific categories of illegal acts against detainees during a war, including torture, murder, rape and hostage-taking.

Left off the list would be what the Geneva Conventions refer to as "outrages upon personal dignity" of a prisoner and deliberately humiliating acts -- such as the forced nakedness, use of dog leashes and wearing of women's underwear seen at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq -- that fall short of torture.

"People have gotten worried, thinking that it's quite likely they might be under a microscope," said a U.S. official. Foreigners are using accusations of unlawful U.S. behavior as a way to rein in American power, the official said, and the amendments are partly meant to fend this off.

The plan has provoked concern at the International Committee of the Red Cross, the entity responsible for safeguarding the Geneva Conventions. A U.S official confirmed that the group's lawyers visited the Pentagon and the State Department last week to discuss the issue but left without any expectation that their objections would be heeded.

[TahitiNut]

1. It's the equivalent of admitting guilt.

The Busholini Regime are war criminals. Unless and until they're prosecuted and imprisoned, this nation wallows in the moral sewage of being an outlaw nation.

[progressivebydesign]

2. Congress already passed something much worse...

a few years ago. It's the "Hague defense act" or somesuch nonsensical name. It protects any elected or appointed OFFICIAL or military member from being tried at the Hague, and authorizes MILITARY response to the NEtherlands to bail out anyone being held there. Nice that the fucking MSM has decided to comment on something like it.. but virutally ignoring the first legislation they passed a few years ago... hmmm... now I have to find it for ya: http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/08/aspa080302.htm From Human Rights Watch. Scary shit...

[Supersedeas]

3. definitely....definitely not wanting to be under a microscope...definitely