Military's Opposition to Harsh Interrogation Is Outlined-NYT

[deminks]

By NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: July 28, 2005

WASHINGTON, July 27 - Senior military lawyers lodged vigorous and detailed dissents in early 2003 as an administration legal task force concluded that President Bush had authority as commander in chief to order harsh interrogations of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, newly disclosed documents show.

The documents include one written by the deputy judge advocate general of the Air Force, Maj. Gen. Jack L. Rives, advising the task force that several of the "more extreme interrogation techniques, on their face, amount to violations of domestic criminal law" as well as military law.

General Rives added that many other countries were likely to disagree with the reasoning used by Justice Department lawyers about immunity from prosecution. Instead, he said, the use of many of the interrogation techniques "puts the interrogators and the chain of command at risk of criminal accusations abroad."

Any such crimes, he said, could be prosecuted in other nations' courts, international courts or the International Criminal Court, a body the United States does not formally participate in or recognize.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/politics/28abuse.html

[wli]

1. Bush's withdrawal from that treaty was unconstitutional

He "erased" Clinton's signature from the treaty... which is legally meaningless.

[MGKrebs]

2. This is big, right?

Doesn't this mean that the torture goes right to the top? Not just a few bad apples?

[seafan]

3. I think you are correct. It looks to me as though some members of

the top military brass are turning on *. Now publicly.

[deminks]

4. I think so, too.

Another clip from the article:

The memorandums provide the most complete record to date of how uniformed military lawyers were frequently the chief dissenters as government officials formulated interrogation policies.

[thecrow]

5. The long arm of true justice has Bush*co in a stranglehold

and the whole world is watching.

[MGKrebs]

6. This is just amazing.

The administration said in August 2002 that torturers will be immune from prosecution. Then they rescind it in December 2004. Those poor slobs who were torturing all that time thought they were going to be protected. It would go better for them if the pictures didn't show them enjoying it so much.

Not only that, the GENERALS were opposed to this torture. What are we to think when the Generals oppose this and it happened anyway? It would really stretch ones common sense to believe that the Generals would order this without being made to. They disagreed with it, but evidently authorized it anyway. Somebody, somewhere, has a cya Presidential Finding or something like that.