A Guide to the Memos on Torture (NYT)

[katinmn]

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/international/24MEMO-GUIDE.html

A Guide to the Memos on Torture
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

The New York Times, Newsweek, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have disclosed memorandums that show a pattern in which Bush administration lawyers set about devising arguments to avoid constraints against mistreatment and torture of detainees. Administration officials responded by releasing hundreds of pages of previously classified documents related to the development of a policy on detainees.

2002

JANUARY A series of memorandums from the Justice Department, many of them written by John C. Yoo, a University of California law professor who was serving in the department, provided arguments to keep United States officials from being charged with war crimes for the way prisoners were detained and interrogated. The memorandums, principally one written on Jan. 9, provided legal arguments to support administration officials' assertions that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to detainees from the war in Afghanistan.

RELATED SITES
• Yoo's Memo on Avoiding Geneva Conventions (PDF document)

JAN. 25 Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, in a memorandum to President Bush, said that the Justice Department's advice in the Jan. 9 memorandum was sound and that Mr. Bush should declare the Taliban and Al Qaeda outside the coverage of the Geneva Conventions. That would keep American officials from being exposed to the federal War Crimes Act, a 1996 law that carries the death penalty.

RELATED SITES
• Gonzales's Memo to Bush (PDF document)

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[Just Me]

1. It's called a conspiracy to commit war crimes.

,...a pattern in which Bush administration lawyers set about devising arguments to avoid constraints against mistreatment and torture of detainees,..."

That would be called a conspiracy to commit war crimes.

:eyes:

How many times does this charge have to be repeated before people get it?

[katinmn]

2. They live outside the law

JAN. 25 Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, in a memorandum to President Bush, said that the Justice Department's advice in the Jan. 9 memorandum was sound and that Mr. Bush should declare the Taliban and Al Qaeda outside the coverage of the Geneva Conventions. That would keep American officials from being exposed to the federal War Crimes Act, a 1996 law that carries the death penalty.

When all is said and done, I hope they come before the world court.

[Just Me]

3. Criminals generally do go to great lengths to rationalize their crimes.

If the American people modeled after their leadership,...we'd all engage in secrecy and deceit and RICO in order to assert power over one another.

[katinmn]

4. I'm afraid that this style of leadership is being modelled

heavily and is spreading like wildfire through the states through the likes of Blackwell, Coleman and others.

[0007]

6. That is one of the biggest reasons in my opinion why the US

wants to divorce itself from the UN. These are War Crimes and should go before the world court. I agree with you!

[GOPFighter]

5. This is not the country I grew up in!

I never, ever, thought I would see the day when the American public, the news media, the major pundits, and Congress would accept an American President giving permission to torture enemy combatants. I love my country, but I'm not sure how much more of this I can take.

[struggle4progress]

7. kick