Ticking time bomb on torture conspirators

[kpete]

Daily Kos
Ticking time bomb on torture conspirators
by youmayberight
Thu Jan 07, 2010 at 08:13:15 PM PST

This Saturday, a time bomb will start ticking. The eight-year statute-of-limitations period applicable to the Federal Torture Statute will soon expire. Then, for time immemorial, it will be official: If you torture or conspire to torture in the name of the United States of America, no consequences will follow. We will have officially sanctioned torture.

Why this Saturday? On January 9, 2002, a memo not as well known as the so-called "torture memos" was completed by John Yoo and Robert Delahunty. Addressed to Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes II, and titled "Application of Laws and Treaties http://www.texscience.org/reform/torture/yoo-delahunty-9jan02.pdf to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees," it is one scary memo. It may be the first evidence of our national policy of torture, what Major General Antonio Taguba, the man selected by the Pentagon to report on Abu Ghraib, called "a systematic regime of torture." The John Yoo and Jay Bybee memos that followed in August of 2002, with their it’s-not-torture-until-organ-failure-occurs, have gotten much more publicity. But the Jan. 9 memo, written in much less inflammatory legalese, was the memo that may well have given the green light for torture. This is where the conspiracy to torture may have begun. Here’s why.

It was not a memo; it was a brief. Legal memos typically lay out the current state of the law on a given issue. They give arguments on all sides and generally inform the client what the legal consequences of a proposed action may be. On the other hand, legal briefs argue a particular side of an issue, with the expectation that in our adversary system of justice, the other party, in its brief, will argue the other side. In the Yoo-Delahunty "memo," every single question raised came out exactly the same way: The Geneva Conventions do not apply.

................

The Jan. 9, 2002, Yoo-Delahunty "memo" may well have been the key memo that began the Bush administration’s "legalization" of its systematic policy of torture. Yoo and Delahunty may have been part of a conspiracy to torture and may be criminally liable under the Federal Torture Statute. Eight years have passed, and their exposure under the torture statute will expire whenever the last act of the conspiracy is determined to have occurred. The statute of limitations’ ticking time bomb has begun to tick.

Tick-tick-tick.

more:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/7/22341/02648

[shraby]

1. There is no statute of limitations on war crimes. We just sent

a war criminal back to Germany to face the music.

[merh]

3. Not to mention the on going conspiracy to violate the law.

[gateley]

2. I didn't think I could be any more shocked or disgusted by what these criminals

did while in power. I was wrong. This sickens me.

[Wilms]

4. John Yoo: Obama Is A Continuation Of Bush On Executive Powers

John Yoo: Obama Is A Continuation Of Bush On Executive Powers

In his new book, former Bush administration attorney and infamous torture memo collaborator John Yoo favorably argues that President Barack Obama is wielding executive powers in the same manner as his White House predecessor.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/31/john-yoo-obama-is-a-conti_n_408441.html

[Jim Sagle]

5. Yeah, but it's OK 'cuz we trust him.

;)

[jtrockville]

6. If we can justify torture, we can justify anything.

We have crossed over to the dark side.

[Land Shark]

7. THERE IS NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS on war crimes, or crimes against humanity (peace or war)

Technically the article may be correct because it seems to only reference purely domestic law. That being said, the Convention against Torture requires nations to conform their domestic law with the treaty (so the statute of limitations is a violation of treaty). At the international level for war crimes or crimes against humanity there are no statutes of limitations, every country in the world has universal jurisdiction and on and on ... the only thing other countries can't do is have trials in absentia.