Your Trustworthy Representatives (Aw, crap.)

[bzarcher]

Bush Administration seeks retroactive war crimes protection.

Now, last time the Executive Branch tried to say that if it commited a crime, and then signed in a law that stated that what it did was legal, a crime was never committed, the Supreme Court stomped on it with the fury of a thousand badgers, and Congress spooled up Impeachment procedings rather quickly, leading to the resignation of Richard Millhouse Nixon.

Keep an eye on this one, kids.

(For the record, I am praying that this is stopped before it goes beyond a draft. Unfortunately, I do not have confidence in that happening.)

Comments

[narel.livejournal.com]

" it does not contain prohibitions from Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions against ``outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.""

ummm... NO.
*desperate* when is the next election??? FOR GODSAKE WHEN IS THE NEXT ELECTION?!!?

WHY are people retarded?
I want that fury of a thousand badgers.... *tear*

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Different time, different Supremes, different legislators and, most importantly, different citizenry. This whole thing becomes meaningless when the citizenry is considered too apathetic to stand up and say, "ExcUSE ME!? OMGWTFBBQ?!" If the citizenry won't rise up and freak out like a horde of rabid howler monkeys, then the politicians don't give a shit. They aren't afraid to lose their positions. Until they're afraid of us, there's no reason for them to bother.

Of course... one might argue that the nomination of someone other than Joe Lieberman might be a warning sign to them that maybe the populace isn't as apathetic as they thought... (evil grin)

[demeterschild.livejournal.com]

The general maltreatment of prisoners of war does in fact irritate the hell out of me. However:

They seem to have a habit of torturing our people when they catch 'em. And then beheading them slowly. And videotaping it. So, since the Geneva Conventions are already out the window in this conflict....

*shrugs* Let em be uncomfortable and perhaps humiliated. It's a sight better than being beheaded on tape for a propaganda video.

Perhaps I'm a bit vindictive.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of reasons not to go down to someone's level, not the least that they're terrorists, and we're supposed to be a professional army over there, with emphasis on Professional.

Also, the very concept of ex post facto legal dodges is very, very offensive to me.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

This is true, but with luck, we're seeing a postive trend again...

[demeterschild.livejournal.com]

Point. It is offensive legally. But the question remains as to the actual legal status of terrorists in the context of the Geneva Conventions. Are they enemy combatants? If so, how do we prosecute *them* if we manage to catch one (doubtful, as they're more than happy to die to attain their objectives)?

If they're not enemy combatants, are they able to claim protections under the Conventions? If they can't, then how can there be a need for retroactive protections against violations of them?

Stickiness all around...hopefully we'll get through this in a sooner rather than later sort of way.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

We have, ourselves, already defined them as enemy combatants, both in our legal actions to detain them in Guantanamo, and our motions on battlefield conduct.

Prosecuting them has already been set up - we drag them to the Hague, and we keep our hands clean so that they don't lock us in irons while we're there.