No Exceptional Circumstances Whatsoever... May Be Invoked as a Justification of Torture

[OnyxCollie]

48. More bullshit to support your rationalization of torture.

John Brennan, is that you?

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/geneva_conventions

The United States has ratified the four Conventions of 1949, but has not ratified the two additional Protocols of 1977.

...

Here's what the US ratified:


Convention I: This Convention protects wounded and infirm soldiers and medical personnel against attack, execution without judgment, torture, and assaults upon personal dignity (Article 3). It also grants them the right to proper medical treatment and care.

Convention II: This agreement extended the protections mentioned in the first Convention to shipwrecked soldiers and other naval forces, including special protections afforded to hospital ships.

Convention III: One of the treaties created during the 1949 Convention, this defined what a Prisoner of War was, and accorded them proper and humane treatment as specified by the first Convention. Specifically, it required POWs to give only their name, rank, and serial number to their captors. Nations party to the Convention may not use torture to extract information from POWs.

Convention IV: Under this Convention, civilians are afforded the protections from inhumane treatment and attack afforded in the first Convention to sick and wounded soldiers. Furthermore, additional regulations regarding the treatment of civilians were introduced. Specifically, it prohibits attacks on civilian hospitals, medical transports, etc. It also specifies the right of internees, and those who commit acts of sabotage. Finally, it discusses how occupiers are to treat an occupied populace.

...

Bushco tried to get around Convention 3 by labeling detainees as "enemy combatants" rather than POW's. John Yoo, however, cited Lewis Libby to declare that the attacks on 9/11 were, for all intents and purposes, a "war."

MEMORANDUM FOR ALBERTO R. GONZALES
COUNSEL TO THE PRESIDENT

WILLIAM J. HAYNES, II
GENERAL COUNSEL
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

FROM:

John c. Yoo
Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Robert J. Delahunty
Special Counsel

RE: Authority for Use of Military Force To Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States

It is vital to grasp that attacks on this scale and with these consequences are "more akin to war than terrorism."1

Lewis Libby, Legal Authority for a Domestic Military Role in Homeland Defense, in Sidney D. Drell, Abraham D. Sofaer, &. George D. Wilson (eds.), The New Terror: Facing the Threat of Biological and Chemical Weapons 305, 305 (1999).