This is very much worth reading (scroll down to June 11); some excerpts:
"There's only one issue to discuss right now: the extra-constitutional rules and philosophy of the Bush Administration, as revealed in the legal briefs and memos drafted for Rumsfeld and Ashcroft and Bush on the torture question....
"The underlying philosophy behind the legal briefs and memos in question can be summarized thusly: The President is the Commander-in-Chief. The President says we're in a war. The Commander-in-Chief in a time of war can lay aside all laws and treaties, and do whatever he feels he has to do, in the name of national security.
"What this means in practice is: Since in a war against terrorism, there is no definitive end, what the U.S. is waging is permanent war -- against the Al Qaida network and against those nation-states that the president deems worthy of being invaded, for real or invented reasons. Since the president is permitted to establish his own set of laws for the duration of the war, it follows that anyone who criticizes his actions ipso facto is giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and can be dealt with at any time by the police agencies of the state. Don't mess with us.
"Can't get much closer to dictatorship than that. This is the world, and philosophy, of Pinochet, Stalin, Hitler. Or, closer to home, Richard Nixon, who claimed that when a president takes any action, because he is the president, by definition his actions are not illegal....
"Note: I'm not saying or suggesting that Bush is Hitler or Stalin or Pinochet, rather that the policies and philosophies expressed, which already have been put into practice and are being defended by the Bush Administration and its supporters, clearly and inevitably takes our country down that road to political dictatorship....
"Even conservatives that are doing all they can to keep Bush in office, and thus preserve their party's majority status in Congress, are having great difficulty coming to the defense of Bush&Co. on this issue. If impeachment is initiated in the next few months, it will come with the aid of Republicans appalled by these extra-constitutional moves by Bush and his handlers to sidestep the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Congress, the courts, indeed any individual or institution that gets in their way.
"Let me reiterate: What is being discussed here is not the torture of detainees or prisoners in the 'war on terror.' That is an important issue all its own, one that flows naturally from the philosophy being advanced in the leaked memos....
"What IS being examined here is the proclaimed right of this Administration to torture anyone, to imprison anyone, to invade any country, simply because (it is claimed) as Commander-in-Chief in a war, he has the sole right to decide who should be prosecuted, imprisoned, tortured, invaded, killed....
"In the case of prisoner-torture and abuse at Guantánamo and in Iraq and elsewhere, the memoranda commissioned by the Justice and Defense Departments (with, per usual, only the State Department objecting) laid out the attitude of this radical, extremist Administration: Find us a way that we can extract information from prisoners in our custody that will not amount to war crimes under the various conventions and treaties about torture.
"The ways they came up with, while morally and legally reprehensible, were ingenious. 1) We won't have 'prisoners of war,' which are covered under the Geneva Conventions; we'll invent new terms not covered, such as 'enemy combatants.' 2) We will claim a new universal right for the president: acting under his authority as Commander-in-Chief during 'wartime,' he can authorize whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and all will be justified under his oath to protect the national security. Therefore, whatever he authorizes is not unlawful, because he IS the law.
"And, to protect those who carry out and facilitate the torture and abuse, all the president has to do is sign a document authorizing him to fulfill the orders, and, in a magic instant, they are thus immunized from war-crimes charges by any federal or international court because (drum roll, please) they were only 'following orders.' ('To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a "presidential directive or other writing" that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is inherent in the president".' Click heels, arms out...."
Also recommended is the lengthy analysis of the "torture memo" by Michael Froomkin (Miami, Law).
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