<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 10:55 AM, lfalen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:lfalen@turbonet.com">lfalen@turbonet.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Andreas<br>
1. One might start by changing the definition of torture or by making several categories of torture.</blockquote><div><br>Actually, until we provided retroactive immunity to US torturers through revisions to the War Crimes Act, our treatment of prisoners were covered under the War Crimes Act. We have not provided such retroactive immunity under either our international obligations or under otherwise existing US law.<br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">2. The Constitution not the UN should be our highest authority.</blockquote><div><br>
Treaties, when ratified, have the weight of law. Actually, slightly higher than other laws. This is because for all intents and purposes, a ratified treaty *is* a law. The UN Convention on Torture was signed by Ronald Reagan in 1988 and became the law of the United States. That aside, US law independently prohibits torture. 18 USC 2340 criminalizes torture committed "under color of law." Its definition is relatively broad: <span class="ptext-1">“[T]orture” means an act committed by a person
acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe
physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering
incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody
or physical control;</span>"<br><br>Waterboarding, sensory deprivation, and sleep deprivation fall under 18 USC 2340(2)(D), which criminalizes "<span class="ptext-2">[p]rocedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality."</span> A profound disruption in the senses and personality -- in particular, to break the will of our victims -- was the particular intention of our interrogators and those that directed them. Further, waterboarding was also found to be torture under US law in the only relevant case on the subject, U.S. v. Lee (744 F.2d 1124) in which three Texas deputies waterboarded a murder suspect in order to obtain a confession. You're most likely to find the affirmation (on other grounds) by the Fifth Circuit if you search for it; the District Court opinion is actually far more relevant. <br>
<br>Incidentally, on the subject of the lawyering that went into the relevant opinions neither US v. Lee nor the Japanese waterboarding cases were discussed in any detail in the so-called "torture memos."<br><br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">3. I think one should listen to all side and try to get a balanced picture( Warren type Commission)</blockquote>
<div><br>You're saying that the FBI investigation, the Taguba Report, the internal memoranda of the OLC, the testimony of the interrogators, and the admissions of the Bush Administration that the President himself authorized waterboarding were insufficient? That we need yet more investigation? And that we should take seriously the protestations of people accused of crimes similar in severity to murder?<br>
<br></div>Whether or not we actually legalize torture, torture was a crime at the time it was committed. OLC opinions provided in bad faith -- as the OLC opinons legalizing torture must have been -- do not bar prosecution. You say we're a nation of laws. But what effect do those laws have when the President, instead of repealing those laws and withdrawing from the obligations, decides to evade and blithely violate them?<br>
<br>-- ACS<br></div><br>