Obama is BOUND BY LAW to prosecute torture.

[freedom fighter jh]

164. "Sigh"?

That looks like shorthand for "What am I gonna do with you, you silly ignorant thing, you?" It's disrespectful, as is your comment about my being able to use google. I'll thank you not to talk down to me. Being a lawyer doesn't make you better or smarter than anyone else.

About your points:

1. I understand that you are familiar with the Supremacy Clause and that a treaty cannot abrogate the Constitution. But I fail to see anything in what King Charlemagne said in post 72 that implies that a treaty can abrogate the Constitution. So what's your point?

In my post 78, when I said treaties are also the supreme law of the land, I was responding to your statement "It [the Constitution] is the supreme law of the land," which in context seemed to me to imply that treaties are not, since you were drawing a contrast between the status of the Constitution and the status of treaties.

2. I have worked with lawyers. Usually the bottom line question for a lawyer is something like "Will this work?" or "What will happen in court?" But sometimes people want to discuss principles and ideas before they start to strategize. King, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I think King Charlemagne was doing.

3. You misrepresent my position. I was not trying to say what the American people think. I was saying that to show that we take the treaty seriously we would have to show that the American people consider violations of it to be criminal. Not saying they do consider violations criminal. I don't claim to know what everyone thinks.

4. Your point that prosecution is not viable now is important. You cite the positions of political parties, and I agree that those positions, as they stand now, would make prosecution impossible. Please note, though, that those positions can change if it becomes clear to everyone that war crimes were committed. That kind of change is, IMO, the goal of a process that grows out of discussions like these.