How the Compromise Detainee Legislation Guts Common Article 3

[Solly Mack]

The War Crime Act of 1996, which made violations of Common Article 3 a criminal offense under US Federal Law...will be changed with the compromise.

"Five common Article 3 violations, which since 1997 have been chargeable as war crimes under the War Crimes Act, have been dropped, with retroactive effect, in the compromise bill.

The excluded violations are as follows:

1 - violence to life and person other than murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture as each of those crimes is restrictively defined in the bill;

2 - murder not associated with one of the other offenses included in the bill;

3 - mutilation not associated with one of the other offenses included in the bill;

4 - outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating treatment; and

5 - the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.


Consider the possible actions that, while subject to prosecution under the present War Crimes Act, no longer would be criminal acts under the compromise legislation: There could easily be a violent assault on a prisoner falling just short of cruel treatment as it is defined in the bill (“severe or serious physical or mental pain or suffering…including serious physical abuse…”). A detainee could be summarily executed with one pistol shot to the head in a circumstance where no other abusive treatment associated with any other “grave breach” as defined in the bill is present. Common Article 3 prohibits “murder of all kinds,” while the compromise bill criminalizes only killing “in the course of committing any other offense under this section (of newly defined ‘grave breaches’).”

Similarly, unless it is done “in the course of committing any other offense under this section ,” the mutilation of a detainee could not be prosecuted under the compromise bill. Thus, the simple act of walking into an interrogation room where a detainee is being questioned in the most civilized possible manner and suddenly chopping off one of his fingers would not be a criminal act under the proposed amendment."



More Here - JURIST


If past war crimes are given protection and the guilty given immunity, and what constitutes a war crime is now being redefined so that it is no longer a war crime, how do we hold ANY war criminal accountable? How do we hold the Bush Regime accountable?

This bill makes a mockery out of the Nuremberg trials.

What has changed since the Nuremberg Trials?

Maybe that America is now the war criminal?

[joemurphy]

1. It is truly something out of some kind of legal Wonderland

to have those who tortured, in violation of the unamended provisions of the War Crimes Act to now amend it, make it applicable to Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, and in the process, retroactively exonerate the torturers.

Oddly, when I was in the Army, we were taught that if captured, all we as prisoners were required to do was give the enemy our name, rank and serial number. If they attempted to extract any more from us, it was a violation of the Geneva Convention.

Now, apparently, we are permitted to demand more than this from those we take prisoner. What is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander. I fear that our newly defined lowest common denominator will soon operate as the norm for the sort of interrogation that all nations will consider permissible. This, then, will gut the high standards laudably sought by the Geneva Convention.

[Solly Mack]

2. It's law through the looking glass for certain

and that they get away with their razzle dazzle, smoke and mirrors, bovine caca is truly mind blowing.

If Bush gets on TV and proclaims, "We don't torture" (even in the face of evidence that says otherwise) - people believe it

and if McCain says, "We made a compromise that adheres to the GC" - people buy it.

I know people need their security blankets but damn...

[magellan]

3. I like what Admiral Hudson said this morning

...in the Judiciary Committee meeting. He was defending Habeus Corpus, but his words cover the entire spectrum of unlawful detention and torture. This is what I typed as he said it, a "rush" transcript of sorts, not verbatim but true to what he said:

"We need to keep standards to get other countries to meet those standards. The test cannot be what would al Qaeda do, the test should be what is the right thing to do. The strength of the US is not our military might, it's who we are, what we stand for, how we're held in regard by other countries.

"The enemy only has terror. They can't beat us unless they bring us down to their level. We have the opportunity to resist that temptation, the temptation to be less than we are."

[Solly Mack]

4. He's correct

It's not what the other guy does...it's what we do that makes the difference

[madokie]

8. All decision should be based on what is right

right makes might, might makes wrong
K & R

[Solly Mack]

10. well said

[Solly Mack]

5. tenacious

:)

[Solly Mack]

6. Good Morning kick

[BelgianMadCow]

7. This is important - it is so hard to distill this info from the bill

itself, such a summary was needed.

Thanks & rec'd.

[Solly Mack]

9. They count on people not reading it

and most people won't :(