New sham: Bush changing laws to escape war crimes charges
Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 2:15 pm
Another outrageous move by our moron tyrant. Somebody with half a brain please explain to me how anyone can swallow this one. The principle behind it allows Bush to do anything he wants...anything....as long as Congress is standing ready to overturn any law he breaks. This is blatant fascism, friends. Both Hitler and Mussolini engineered the same deal. It could kill you, your family, take posession of your property. etc. It could suspend elections.
War Crimes Act Changes Would Reduce Threat Of Prosecution
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 9, 2006; 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 [the] 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.
The administration has not officially released the draft amendments. Although they are part of broader legislation on military courts still being discussed within the government, their substance has already been embraced by key officials and will not change, two government sources said.
No criminal prosecutions have been brought under the War Crimes Act, which Congress passed in 1996 and expanded in 1997. But 10 experts on the laws of war, who reviewed a draft of the amendments at the request of The Washington Post, said the changes could affect how those involved in detainee matters act and how other nations view Washington's respect for its treaty obligations.
"This removal of [any] reference to humiliating and degrading treatment will be perceived by experts and probably allies as 'rewriting' " the Geneva Conventions, said retired Army Lt. Col. Geoffrey S. Corn, who was recently chief of the war law branch of the Army's Office of the Judge Advocate General. Others said the changes could affect how foreigners treat U.S. soldiers.
The amendments would narrow the reach of the War Crimes Act, which now states in general terms that Americans can be prosecuted in federal criminal courts for violations of "Common Article 3" of the Geneva Conventions, which the United States ratified in 1949.
U.S. officials have long interpreted the War Crimes Act as applying to civilians, including CIA officers, and former U.S. military personnel. Misconduct by serving military personnel is handled by military courts, which enforce a prohibition on cruelty and mistreatment. The Army Field Manual, which is being revised, separately bars cruel and degrading treatment, corporal punishment, assault, and sensory deprivation.
Common Article 3 is considered the universal minimum standard of treatment for civilian detainees in wartime. It requires that they be treated humanely and bars "violence to life and person," including murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture. It further prohibits "outrages upon personal dignity" such as "humiliating and degrading treatment." And it prohibits sentencing or execution by courts that fail to provide "all the judicial guarantees . . . recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."
The risk of possible prosecution of officials, CIA officers and former service personnel over alleged rough treatment of prisoners arises because the Bush administration, from January 2002 until June, maintained that the Geneva Conventions' protections did not apply to prisoners captured in Afghanistan.
As a result, the government authorized interrogations using methods that U.S. military lawyers have testified were in violation of Common Article 3; it also created a system of military courts not specifically authorized by Congress, which denied defendants many routine due process rights.
The Supreme Court decided in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld on June 29, however, that the administration's policy of not honoring the Geneva Conventions was illegal, and that prisoners in the fight against al-Qaeda are entitled to such protections.
U.S. officials have since responded in three ways: They have asked Congress to pass legislation blocking the prisoners' right to sue for the enforcement of those protections. They have drafted legislation allowing the consideration of intelligence-gathering needs during interrogations, in place of an absolute human rights standard.
They also formulated the War Crimes Act amendments spelling out some serious crimes and omitting altogether some that U.S. officials describe as less serious. For example, two acts considered under international law as constituting "outrages" -- rape and sexual abuse -- are listed as prosecutable.
But humiliations, degrading treatment and other acts specifically deemed as "outrages" by the international tribunal prosecuting war crimes in the former Yugoslavia -- such as placing prisoners in "inappropriate conditions of confinement," forcing them to urinate or defecate in their clothes, and merely threatening prisoners with "physical, mental, or sexual violence" -- would not be among the listed U.S. crimes, officials said.
"It's plain that this proposal would abrogate portions of Common Article 3," said Derek P. Jinks, a University of Texas assistant professor of law and author of a forthcoming book on the Geneva Conventions. The "entire family of techniques" that military interrogators used to deliberately degrade and humiliate, and thus coerce, detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Abu Ghraib "is not addressed in any way, shape or form" in the new language authorizing prosecutions, he said.
War Crimes Act Changes Would Reduce Threat Of Prosecution
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 9, 2006; 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 [the] 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.
The administration has not officially released the draft amendments. Although they are part of broader legislation on military courts still being discussed within the government, their substance has already been embraced by key officials and will not change, two government sources said.
No criminal prosecutions have been brought under the War Crimes Act, which Congress passed in 1996 and expanded in 1997. But 10 experts on the laws of war, who reviewed a draft of the amendments at the request of The Washington Post, said the changes could affect how those involved in detainee matters act and how other nations view Washington's respect for its treaty obligations.
"This removal of [any] reference to humiliating and degrading treatment will be perceived by experts and probably allies as 'rewriting' " the Geneva Conventions, said retired Army Lt. Col. Geoffrey S. Corn, who was recently chief of the war law branch of the Army's Office of the Judge Advocate General. Others said the changes could affect how foreigners treat U.S. soldiers.
The amendments would narrow the reach of the War Crimes Act, which now states in general terms that Americans can be prosecuted in federal criminal courts for violations of "Common Article 3" of the Geneva Conventions, which the United States ratified in 1949.
U.S. officials have long interpreted the War Crimes Act as applying to civilians, including CIA officers, and former U.S. military personnel. Misconduct by serving military personnel is handled by military courts, which enforce a prohibition on cruelty and mistreatment. The Army Field Manual, which is being revised, separately bars cruel and degrading treatment, corporal punishment, assault, and sensory deprivation.
Common Article 3 is considered the universal minimum standard of treatment for civilian detainees in wartime. It requires that they be treated humanely and bars "violence to life and person," including murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture. It further prohibits "outrages upon personal dignity" such as "humiliating and degrading treatment." And it prohibits sentencing or execution by courts that fail to provide "all the judicial guarantees . . . recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."
The risk of possible prosecution of officials, CIA officers and former service personnel over alleged rough treatment of prisoners arises because the Bush administration, from January 2002 until June, maintained that the Geneva Conventions' protections did not apply to prisoners captured in Afghanistan.
As a result, the government authorized interrogations using methods that U.S. military lawyers have testified were in violation of Common Article 3; it also created a system of military courts not specifically authorized by Congress, which denied defendants many routine due process rights.
The Supreme Court decided in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld on June 29, however, that the administration's policy of not honoring the Geneva Conventions was illegal, and that prisoners in the fight against al-Qaeda are entitled to such protections.
U.S. officials have since responded in three ways: They have asked Congress to pass legislation blocking the prisoners' right to sue for the enforcement of those protections. They have drafted legislation allowing the consideration of intelligence-gathering needs during interrogations, in place of an absolute human rights standard.
They also formulated the War Crimes Act amendments spelling out some serious crimes and omitting altogether some that U.S. officials describe as less serious. For example, two acts considered under international law as constituting "outrages" -- rape and sexual abuse -- are listed as prosecutable.
But humiliations, degrading treatment and other acts specifically deemed as "outrages" by the international tribunal prosecuting war crimes in the former Yugoslavia -- such as placing prisoners in "inappropriate conditions of confinement," forcing them to urinate or defecate in their clothes, and merely threatening prisoners with "physical, mental, or sexual violence" -- would not be among the listed U.S. crimes, officials said.
"It's plain that this proposal would abrogate portions of Common Article 3," said Derek P. Jinks, a University of Texas assistant professor of law and author of a forthcoming book on the Geneva Conventions. The "entire family of techniques" that military interrogators used to deliberately degrade and humiliate, and thus coerce, detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Abu Ghraib "is not addressed in any way, shape or form" in the new language authorizing prosecutions, he said.
