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Stephanie's World
Retroactive Legality!
Another week, another example of the President playing the role of "The Decider" and picking and choosing what laws matter and when. We've talked before about the signing statements that he attaches to most bills as he signs them. Statements that provide him with escape mechanisms to ignore laws at his discretion.
His difficulty this time around is that there exist bills on the books that predate his kingship. Bills where no such escape clause exists. One example, the 1996 War Crimes Act. This act defines a war crime to include any violation or grave breach of any of the Geneva Conventions, and applies if either the victim or the perpetrator is a national of the United States or a member of the U.S. armed forces. The penalty may be life imprisonment or death. The death penalty is only invoked if the conduct resulted in the death of one or more victims.
This bill's passage was designed to finally provide the opportunity for redress against Vietnamese soldiers who tortured American POWs. It was passed as part of a flurry of legislation during the period when the United States normalized relations with Vietnam. The bill passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and by a voice vote in the House. It was entirely uncontroversial at the time.
Ten years later, in July of this year, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applied to the War on Terrorism, providing Geneva Protections to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The unstated implication in that ruling is that any interrogation techniques used upon those prisoners that violated Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions is now deemed to be in contravention of the War Crimes act, and so those responsible should be charged.
Now, we won't go too far into the obvious side-conversation about the fact that it was never up to the President to declare these people as exempt from the Geneva Conventions in the first place. You see - this pesky treaty that he is trying to redefine is pretty specific on that issue as well.
Article 4 of the Geneva Convention defines the categories of persons who may be considered as "prisoners of war." The President unilaterally declared that those captured in the War on Terror did not meet those qualifications, and so were exempt. And you know something - that point very well may be debatable. But it is a debate that was never held despite being required by the Conventions. You see, according to Article 5, "should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal." No competent tribunal, of course, has adjudicated this matter - until it finally came before the Supreme Court despite all of the President's efforts to block it.
But the treaty is clear - the prisoners were required to have full Geneva protections until deemed NOT to be POWs by a qualified tribunal approved by the International Red Cross. Instead, the exact opposite occurred as they were considered to be exempt from the conventions until a ruling included them.
So what does George need this new legislation for? That seems an appropriate question under the circumstances doesn't it? Why pursue this ridiculous notion that one nation can unilaterally redefine an international treaty when he would no doubt scream bloody murder if Iran attempted to redefine the non-proliferation treaties to exempt themselves?
Oh sure, he'll tell Matt Lauer in interview that it is all about putting necessary tools into the hands of the Intelligence community. But if it were that, why didn't he ensure that it were passed at the start of this war instead of now trying to put them in place backdated to five years ago?
Just how much has gone on that needs to get made legal from the last five years?
No, it is all just a hasty response to the Supreme Court ruling. The prisoners, having been deemed as being included under the conventions, now have rights. So by redefining Article 3 there suddenly becomes no violations of those rights that has occurred to prosecute. Legally, it all just never happened, and for all intents and purposes the Supreme Court ruling is rendered moot.
Of course, you still can't even get the President to acknowledge the rights of the prisoners given that - as recently as on September 6th - he stated that "Neither The President's Proposed Legislation Nor The Detainees' Transfer To Guantanamo Gives The Detainees POW Status."
In other words, he is asking for retroactive immunity against the treatment of people that he still insists are not even covered by the very legislation that he is proposing.
If you can make sense of that train of though, well - you're doing better than me!
And do you really think that he is covering the asses of the people actually doing the dirty work? Or is he looking at the poll numbers and running scared about how a Democrat-controlled congress might choose to use the blatant violations of the rights of people should the word "impeachment" start to sound appealing?
Frankly, this is all that this is about in a nutshell. A "get out of jail free" card for George and his inner circle. That's it, that's all, and anything else is just incidental.
In the meantime, the first casualty of such self-serving legislation is that the cases against the 17 service men and women currently under indictment for abuses at Abu Ghraib will likely become almost impossible to prosecute. Another black eye to the credibility of the American Army as they continue to try and bring stability to Iraq. Another black eye to the military as they find themselves hamstrung in their need to be able to restrain their troops should they cross the line.
It seems a far cry from 2002 doesn't it? When Secretary Rumsfeld lashed out at Iraq for the relatively harmless violation of the rights of captured American Soldiers who were filmed being interviewed and the films aired to the world? Back then, it seemed, the Geneva Conventions still mattered - if only just a little.
In 1996 the Department of Defense fully supported the War Crimes bill, and indeed recommending that it be expanded to include an even longer list of war crimes than it does. Because the United States generally followed the Conventions, it was the military itself that recommended making breaches by U.S. soldiers war crimes as well "because doing so set a high standard for others to follow." The Senate had made no such requirement in the initial draft of the bill, but the military understood that their own sense of honor required that they be held to the same lofty standards that they wanted their future foes to be held to.
But in today's world, respected Generals such as Colin Powell who still believe in setting high standards - regardless of the actions of the opponent - are described as being "confused" and dismissed by this administration. And people who understand far too well the ramifications of torture such as Senator McCain are also blasted for wanting no part in making it an institutionalized part of standard operating procedures.
Those people just don't understand you see.
After all, what do standards, honor, or morality have to do with a war to protect our way of life?
Please come check out my "video/radio" show every Monday , Wednesday and Friday. Show times are Mon & Wed @ 10 PM ET. Friday night at 10:30 PM ET. I can be found @ Stickam user name (all one word) "politicallysound" Since Myspace won't seem to allow me to put the link in. Simply go to Stickam dot com/politicallysound you'll have to type it in. Cause Myspace won't allow me to put the link up. Afraid of competition? Sad really!
