Military Fought to Abide by War Rules (LAT)

[ovidsen]

Military Fought to Abide by War Rules

By Julian E. Barnes, Times Staff Writer
June 30, 2006

WASHINGTON — For four years, they waged what may have been the loneliest fight in the war on terrorism. Facing Bush administration hard-liners intent on finding novel ways to deal with enemy combatants, the armed services' own lawyers fought attempts to rewrite the rules of war.

snip

"Irregular interrogation polices are illegal in the wake of this opinion — illegal, illegal, illegal," said Derek P. Jinks, a law professor at the University of Texas and coauthor of a Supreme Court brief on the history of the Geneva Convention. "The crucial finding is that Common Article 3 applies."

Although Defense officials said they were still studying the opinion, some in the administration believed that Jinks' view was probably correct, and that the Hamdan decision would mean the architects of the war on terrorism would have to give new weight to the views of the military's lawyers.

"The opinion seems to provide strong support for the position that even interrogation of terrorists must comply with the Geneva conventions," the administration lawyer said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-military30jun30,0,4703996.story?track=mostviewed-homepage

Sometimes the good guys wear uniforms. And sometimes they win.

[msongs]

1. evidently the US military knows who is a threat and who is not nt

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. They know THEY will be held accountable at the war crimes trials

Precedent set -- nay, DEMANDED -- by the United States at Nuremburg has guaranteed that "we were only following orders to commit these crimes" will never be a defense.