Bush Seeks Retroactive Immunity for Violating War Crimes Act

[Traveler]

The President says that everything he is doing on the "war on terror" doesn't break the law. If that is the case, why is he insistent on Congress inserting into the war crimes bill language that pardons "all" U.S. Nationals?

Bush Seeks Retroactive Immunity for Violating War Crimes Act
By Elizabeth Holtzman
The Chicago Sun-Times

Saturday 23 September 2006

Thirty-two years ago, President Gerald Ford created a political firestorm by pardoning former President Richard Nixon of all crimes he may have committed in Watergate - and lost his election as a result. Now, President Bush, to avoid a similar public outcry, is quietly trying to pardon himself of any crimes connected with the torture and mistreatment of U.S. detainees.

The "pardon" is buried in Bush's proposed legislation to create a new kind of military tribunal for cases involving top al-Qaida operatives. The "pardon" provision has nothing to do with the tribunals. Instead, it guts the War Crimes Act of 1996, a federal law that makes it a crime, in some cases punishable by death, to mistreat detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions and makes the new, weaker terms of the War Crimes Act retroactive to 9/11.

Press accounts of the provision have described it as providing immunity for CIA interrogators. But its terms cover the president and other top officials because the act applies to any U.S. national.

Avoiding prosecution under the War Crimes Act has been an obsession of this administration since shortly after 9/11. In a January 2002 memorandum to the president, then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales pointed out the problem of prosecution for detainee mistreatment under the War Crimes Act. He notes that given the vague language of the statute, no one could predict what future "prosecutors and independent counsels" might do if they decided to bring charges under the act. As an author of the 1978 special prosecutor statute, I know that independent counsels (who used to be called "special prosecutors" prior to the statute's reauthorization in 1994) aren't for low-level government officials such as CIA interrogators, but for the president and his Cabinet. It is clear that Gonzales was concerned about top administration officials.

Gonzales also understood that the specter of prosecution could hang over top administration officials involved in detainee mistreatment throughout their lives. Because there is no statute of limitations in cases where death resulted from the mistreatment, prosecutors far into the future, not appointed by Bush or beholden to him, would be making the decisions whether to prosecute.

To "reduce the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act," Gonzales recommended that Bush not apply the Geneva Conventions to al-Qaida and the Taliban. Since the War Crimes Act carried out the Geneva Conventions, Gonzales reasoned that if the Conventions didn't apply, neither did the War Crimes Act. Bush implemented the recommendation on Feb. 7, 2002.

When the Supreme Court recently decided that the Conventions did apply to al-Qaida and Taliban detainees, the possibility of criminal liability for high-level administration officials reared its ugly head again.

What to do? The administration has apparently decided to secure immunity from prosecution through legislation. Under cover of the controversy involving the military tribunals and whether they could use hearsay or coerced evidence, the administration is trying to pardon itself, hoping that no one will notice. The urgent timetable has to do more than anything with the possibility that the next Congress may be controlled by Democrats, who will not permit such a provision to be adopted.

Creating immunity retroactively for violating the law sets a terrible precedent. The president takes an oath of office to uphold the Constitution; that document requires him to obey the laws, not violate them. A president who knowingly and deliberately violates U.S. criminal laws should not be able to use stealth tactics to immunize himself from liability, and Congress should not go along.

--------

Elizabeth Holtzman, a former New York congresswoman, is co-author with Cynthia L. Cooper of The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/othervi...REF23B.article

[TailgateNut]

..and this is supposed to suprise us. The criminal is trying to de-criminalize his actions after the fact.

[Rohirrim]

Creating immunity retroactively for violating the law sets a terrible precedent. The president takes an oath of office to uphold the Constitution; that document requires him to obey the laws, not violate them. A president who knowingly and deliberately violates U.S. criminal laws should not be able to use stealth tactics to immunize himself from liability, and Congress should not go along.

You'd think this was self evident. I guess we live in different times.

[baja]

What I just don't get is where the hell is the outrage of the American people about all these "aboue the law" acts being commited against the legal underpinings of this nation by the Bush administration.

Has the dumbing down of America been this successful??

Or are we really that afraid!

[Spider]

Originally Posted by baja fan

What I just don't get is where the hell is the outrage of the American people about all these "aboue the law" acts being commited against the legal underpinings of this nation by the Bush administration.

Has the dumbing down of America been this successful??

Or are we really that afraid!

Just not enough hard hitting Dems anymore ..... Brass Knuckle types , a guy that will stand up for what he believes no matter what ........ and be willing to throw the left hook when the situation calls for it .......... I am moving Egsign rig #93 from the Mesa to Tioga North Dakaota ......... I will run into alot of Barrey Ramey types , and I will set them striat one way or another ........

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by baja fan

What I just don't get is where the hell is the outrage of the American people about all these "aboue the law" acts being commited against the legal underpinings of this nation by the Bush administration.

Has the dumbing down of America been this successful??

Or are we really that afraid!

Currently, the press is focused on attacking Clinton, digging up the dirt on TO and following Paris Hilton around. They don't have much time for these boring stories that don't bling bling their ratings.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by baja fan

What I just don't get is where the hell is the outrage of the American people about all these "aboue the law" acts being commited against the legal underpinings of this nation by the Bush administration.

Has the dumbing down of America been this successful??

Or are we really that afraid!

I think a lot of the outrage has been overtaken by a sense of hopelessness, i.e., the sense that our government no longer belongs to "we the people" and it's probably too late to do anything about it.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by TailgateNut

..and this is supposed to suprise us. The criminal is trying to de-criminalize his actions after the fact.

Yep.

It's going to be interesting to watch him pardon all his co-conspirators in all his high crimes and misdemeanors before he leaves office - just like daddy.

Oh well - at least no one got a blowjob, right?

Move along....nothing to see...

[baja]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

I think a lot of the outrage has been overtaken by a sense of hopelessness, i.e., the sense that our government no longer belongs to "we the people" and it's probably too late to do anything about it.

I think you are right

What we all need is a strong leader to get behind. America needs like never before a national hero to look up to and follow. Will one emerge in the nick of time

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by baja fan

I think you are right

What we all need is a strong leader to get behind. America needs like never before a national hero to look up to and follow. Will one emerge in the nick of time

Unfortunately, the "pay to play" system in D.C. is designed to keep strong leaders who would represent "we the people" out and whores who represent "we the corporations/special interests" in.

Nothing is likely to change until we find a way to change the system.

This is a tall order when the same monied/special interests own the system and the politicians.

[baja]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Unfortunately, the "pay to play" system in D.C. is designed to keep strong leaders who would represent "we the people" out and whores who represent "we the corporations/special interests" in.

Nothing is likely to change until we find a way to change the system.

This is a tall order when the same monied/special interests own the system and the politicians.

This is why i am now grateful for George W Bush and the speed with which he is bring about the economic collapse and following chaos

[BroncoBuff]

Originally Posted by Traveler

Bush Seeks Retroactive Immunity for Violating War Crimes Act
By Elizabeth Holtzman
The Chicago Sun-Times

Saturday 23 September 2006

I think maybe I was "ahead of the curve" on this story:
http://orangemane.com/BB/showthread.php?t=46939

Originally Posted by me

"Such a new definition, as an amendment to an international treaty, would be retroactive in application, allowing Bushco to claim "clean hands" when stories like Arar's are relayed by Red Cross workers."

[BroncoBuff]

This torture crap makes me want to projectile vomit my trachea through the nearest window ...

[Traveler]

Many Rights in U.S. Legal System Absent in New Bill

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 29, 2006; Page A13

The military trials bill approved by Congress lends legislative support for the first time to broad rules for the detention, interrogation, prosecution and trials of terrorism suspects far different from those in the familiar American criminal justice system.

President Bush's argument that the government requires extraordinary power to respond to the unusual threat of terrorism helped him win final support for a system of military trials with highly truncated defendant's rights. The United States used similar trials on just four occasions: during the country's revolution, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and World War II.

Included in the bill, passed by Republican majorities in the Senate yesterday and the House on Wednesday, are unique rules that bar terrorism suspects from challenging their detention or treatment through traditional habeas corpus petitions. They allow prosecutors, under certain conditions, to use evidence collected through hearsay or coercion to seek criminal convictions.

The bill rejects the right to a speedy trial and limits the traditional right to self-representation by requiring that defendants accept military defense attorneys. Panels of military officers need not reach unanimous agreement to win convictions, except in death penalty cases, and appeals must go through a second military panel before reaching a federal civilian court.

By writing into law for the first time the definition of an "unlawful enemy combatant," the bill empowers the executive branch to detain indefinitely anyone it determines to have "purposefully and materially" supported anti-U.S. hostilities. Only foreign nationals among those detainees can be tried by the military commissions, as they are known, and sentenced to decades in jail or put to death.

At the same time, the bill immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees who the military and the CIA captured before the end of last year. It gives the president a dominant but not exclusive role in setting the rules for future interrogations of terrorism suspects.

Written largely, but not completely, on the administration's terms, with passages that give executive branch officials discretion to set details or divert from its protections, the bill is meant to provide what Bush said yesterday are "the tools" needed to handle terrorism suspects U.S. officials hope to capture.

For more than 57 months after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush maintained that he did not need congressional authorization of such tools. But the Supreme Court decided otherwise in June, declaring the administration's detainee treatment and trial procedures illegal, and ruling that Bush must first seek Congress's approval.

Now Bush has received much of the authority he desired from party loyalists and a handful of Democrats on Capitol Hill. "The American people need to know we're working together," Bush told senators before yesterday's vote.

But Tom Malinowski, the Washington office director for Human Rights Watch, said Bush's motivation is partly to protect his reputation by gaining congressional endorsement of controversial actions already taken. "He's been accused of authorizing criminal torture in a way that has hurt America and could come back to haunt our troops. One of his purposes is to have Congress stand with him in the dock," Malinowski said.

The bill contains some protections unavailable to the eight Nazi saboteurs who came ashore in the United States in 1942 and were captured two weeks later. Six were executed that year after a closed military trial on the fifth floor of Justice Department headquarters. That proceeding was upheld by the Supreme Court in a decision it explained two months after the electrocutions.

Under the new procedures, trials are supposed to be open, but can be closed to protect the security of individuals or information expected to harm national security. Defendants have a right to be present, unless they are disruptive, and a right to examine and respond to the evidence against them. Proof of guilt must exceed a reasonable doubt.

Many constitutional experts say, however, that the bill pushes at the edges of so much settled U.S. law that its passage will not be the last word on America's detainee policies. They predict it will shift the public debate to the federal courts, a forum where the administration has had less success getting its way on counterterrorism policies.

"This is a full-employment act for lawyers," said Deborah Perlstein, who directs the U.S. Law and Security Program at the New York-based nonprofit group Human Rights First.

Former White House associate counsel Bradford A. Berenson, a supporter of the bill and one of the authors of the rules struck down by the Supreme Court, agreed. "Some of the most creative legal minds are going to be devoted to poking holes in this," he said.

Anticipating court challenges, the administration attempted to make the bill bulletproof by including provisions that would sharply restrict judicial review and limit the application of international treaties -- signed by Washington -- that govern the rights of wartime detainees.

The bill also contains blunt assertions that it complies with U.S. treaty obligations.

University of Texas constitutional law professor Sanford V. Levinson described the bill in an Internet posting as the mark of a "banana republic." Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh said that "the image of Congress rushing to strip jurisdiction from the courts in response to a politically created emergency is really quite shocking, and it's not clear that most of the members understand what they've done."

In contrast, Douglas W. Kmiec, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University, said Congress "did reasonably well in terms of fashioning a fair" set of procedures. But Kmiec and many others say they cannot predict how the Supreme Court will respond to the provision barring habeas corpus rights, which he said will leave "a large body of detainees with no conceivable basis to challenge their detentions."

There are other likely flashpoints. In the Supreme Court's June decision overturning previous administration policies, four members of the court who joined the majority opinion said conspiracy is not a war crime. The new bill says it is.

Georgetown University law professor Neal Katyal said the bill's creation of two systems of justice -- military commissions for foreign nationals and regular criminal trials for U.S. citizens -- may violate the Constitution's 14th Amendment, which requires equal protection of the laws to anyone under U.S. jurisdiction.

"If you're an American citizen, you get the Cadillac system of justice. If you're a foreigner or a green-card holder, you get this beat-up-Chevy version," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...092801763.html

[enjolras]

This caught my eye:

The United States used similar trials on just four occasions: during the country's revolution, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and World War II.

In the past this extraordinary use of government power was presided over by:

Washington... Polk...Lincoln... Roosevelt.

That's pretty heady company (Polk presided not only over the Mexican-American war but was responsible for acquiring much of our western territory). Does Bush really fancy himself in that category? Does anyone here trust him to live up to that?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by enjolras

Does anyone here trust him to live up to that?

Given his track record, there's no reason to trust the illegitimate pinhead with anything.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

[ClevelandBronco]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

I think a lot of the outrage has been overtaken by a sense of hopelessness, i.e., the sense that our government no longer belongs to "we the people" and it's probably too late to do anything about it.

Welcome to my point of view. I've been here since 1970. Pull up a chair.

[ClevelandBronco]

Originally Posted by BroncoBuff

This torture crap makes me want to projectile vomit my trachea through the nearest window ...

Defenestration isn't the answer.

But it might be a useful technique.

And I hope that every single one of you has to look it up.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by ClevelandBronco

Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming...

Wait - Nixon was your man.

[ClevelandBronco]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Wait - Nixon was your man.

I was 9 in '68.

Jim Brown was my man in '68.

[Atlas]

You know how much Bush has caused America? If I could go back in time and kill him I would. I have seen many people die(a good friend) and I know that hundreds of thousands of people have died because of him. His death prior to 2000 would have only positive affects on this country.

That being said I must say I don't want this a-hole dead now because 2008 elections aren't too far off, and I don't want to goto jail.

I am doing all that I can to see his party has been defeated!!

moveon.org
naral.org

help out.... we can make a difference.


HAVE YOU??.??

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by ClevelandBronco

Defenestration isn't the answer.

But it might be a useful technique.

And I hope that every single one of you has to look it up.

Throwing someone out of a window (and, no, I didn't have to look it up - I'm just that good. )

[ClevelandBronco]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Throwing someone out of a window (and, no, I didn't have to look it up - I'm just that good. )

Good man.

And I think I was wrong about Brown. He was probably retired before '68. Leroy Kelly would have been my man in that case.