I Guarantee You, NOBODY Will Go On Trial For Torture

[WeDidIt]

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 granted retroactive immunity to the Bush Administration Officials involved in torture.

Nobody will ever stand trial.

[Junkdrawer]

1. Service to Empire is always rewarded and never punished...

Never.

[MrPerson]

2. I think we should try to get "confessions" from them.

[Echo In Light]

3. Of course not. Why should they? Hell, just ask the jerk-off public here & they'll tell ya

[MrCoffee]

4. Many, many DUers DEFENDED the MCA when it passed

as a means to get Democrats elected.

[Supersedeas]

17. now would be an appropriate time to review the vote tally

[MrCoffee]

20. Now that it's too late to do anything about it?

Nah...I cried my tears over the MCA when it passed...now it's just pure ugly irony to watch GD.

[Supersedeas]

41. Accountability can sometime be late in coming -- thanks for posting the RollCall

Notable Yeas

Carper (D-De)
McCain (R-Az)
Lieberman (?-Ct)
Lautenburg (D-NJ)
Landrieu (D-La)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Nelson (D-Fl)
Nelson (D-Ne)
Pryor (D-Ar)
Rockerfeller (D-WV)
Salavar (D-Co)
Stabenow (D-Mi)

[Supersedeas]

42. you can find the Roll Call for the House here:

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll508.xml

[MrCoffee]

30. It's right here

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00259

[bullwinkle428]

24. I made phone calls begging my representatives to vote NO on that bill...

...still didn't work. :mad:

[MrCoffee]

26. I did too...and was told by DU that it was a good thing it passed

so that Democrats running in 2006 wouldn't get labeled "soft on terror".

[EFerrari]

28. A lot of us did. n/t

[ORDagnabbit]

5. This Sieg Heil Defense cannot stand! the common person just wont buy it.

"so you were told it was okay to torture kids with insects in boxes?"

"how and why would you follow through on something so obviously reprehensible?"

"so if authorities said you could rape, kill and eat the children you would do that too?"

If this Sieg Heil Defense is allowed I think Americans will go into a hunt the perps down and give them mob justice.

[MrCoffee]

A defense requires a venue in which it can be raised

There is no such venue.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

6. Unfortunately

You are most likely correct. :(

I wish you were wrong but I understand the law and it is on their side.

[originalpckelly]

9. No, the law is not on their side. No one can give themselves immunity for a crime.

It's fucking absurd on its face, and it's just an example of the bullshit legal arguments floating around to justify injustice.

Torture was an impeachable offense, the US Constitution clearly states the President may not pardon himself in cases of impeachment, by signing the MCA Bush pardoned himself for an impeachable offense. It may apply to CIA agents, but the CIA is an executive branch agency operating with the authority of the President. So it's like the executive branch pardoned itself.

[originalpckelly]

7. Can someone give themselves immunity for a crime they committed?

I seem to remember that the MCA was a law signed by the President of the United States.

How can someone pardon himself?

That's how fucking absurd your argument is. It's like a robber pardoning himself.

[WeDidIt]

10. I would tend to agree

but the MCA will be cited as a reason why there are no prosecutions.

Guaranteed.

[originalpckelly]

14. The CIA was a part of the executive branch, Bush was the Chief Executive...

he signed the bill, thus it's like the executive branch pardoned itself for committing crimes. This is a basic idea.

This is clearly unconstitutional, because torture is an impeachable offense, impeachable offenses are excepted from the President's pardon power, which ex post facto legalization is an exercise of. Due to the fact that the legislative process in America is a process that can (and did in this case) include joint action between the executive branch and the legislative branch, Bush was effectively pardoning himself.

This goes back to Calder v. Bull.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calder_v._Bull

The MCA was an ex post facto law affecting criminality of certain acts retroactively. It has been commonly held that the ex post facto prohibition refers to criminal offenses, and only in protecting people who did a formerly legal thing from being prosecuted under the new law.

So that means a legislature can pass a law that legalizes formerly criminal activity. If tomorrow a bill was passed/signed that legalized marijuana, people who were brought in on those charges in the past would be free and clear.

The problem here, is that this power is being applied in a circumstance that doesn't apply to all people in the population. It's is not universally legal for people to torture, just the government. The government created the new law, in order to protect itself, in order to pardon itself.

Such an action is clearly not constitutional, as it violates the 8th amendment, so under the constitution this behavior (torture) is illegal. If an unconstitutional action may be the grounds for impeachment, ordering torture would also be unconstitutional and impeachable.

The President cannot under the pardon clause of Article II, Section 2 pardon himself of impeachable offenses.
"he shall have power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment."

*Had to fix title, Bush was the Chief Executive. :P

[MrCoffee]

12. Here's how

http://www.asil.org/insights061114.cfm

A similar discord is found in the section of the MCA amending the US War Crimes Act. The impetus to amend the War Crimes Act was presumably provided by the Supreme Court's finding that Common Article 3 (which was incorporated by reference in the Act) regulated the treatment of Hamdan. As has been noted above, the Defense Department has applied the Court's ruling to the conflict with Al-Qaeda in general. The War Crimes Act previously prohibited violations of Common Article 3 in very general terms. The MCA amends the War Crimes Act to prohibit violations of Common Article 3 only if they amount to "grave breaches," and then specifically defines the crimes that constitute "grave breaches" of Common Article 3.

As noted above, the MCA stipulates that its criminalization of these violations of Common Article 3 "fully satisf the obligation under Article 129 of the Third Geneva Convention for the United States to provide effective penal sanctions for grave breaches which are encompassed in common Article 3..." The relevant part of Article 129 of that Convention reads:

The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article.<26>

However, the "following Article," Article 130 of the Third Geneva Convention, makes no reference to Common Article 3. Indeed, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Statute of the International Criminal Court recognize the existence of "grave breaches" only in the context of international armed conflicts. Thus, one could not sensibly speak of "grave breaches" of Common Article 3, in the sense of Article 129.

Finally, in enumerating the various "grave breaches" of Common Article 3, the MCA omits two prohibitions contained within Common Article 3 - the prohibition of "utrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment" and of "he 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.

[originalpckelly]

15. I'm not talking about international law. Under our own constitution...

this is completely illegal. Look at my argument above.

It proves both the unconstitutionality of torture or ordering torture.

[progressoid]

18. The government does a lot of illegal things

Most are never prosecuted. And if prosecuted, rarely convicted. If convicted, rarely properly sentenced.


They will get away with it.

[winyanstaz]

35. and if they get away with it...

more will follow and it will be much worse. The time to restore the Constituion and the rule of law is now.

[Independent_Liberal]

38. Like they'll probably actually use a nuclear weapon against a country the next time.

I wish people who are so willing to give up and shrug this off would see that!

[progressoid]

40. I assume I'm one of the people you're talking about.

FYI, I'm not giving up or shrugging off. Just stating the obvious.

[MrCoffee]

19. But the whole thing is predicated on international law (Common Article 3) according to SCOTUS

which is why the MCA is written the way it is.

In Hamdan v. Rice, SCOTUS said that Common Article 3 is controlling in how Hamdan is to be treated. So Congress "criminalized" certain conduct under CA3, in line with the War Crimes Act.


International law is crucial because Common Article 3 defines the crime. Congress worked a nice little end-around to actually avoid criminalizing anything under Common Article 3.

It's actually a deft piece of utterly corrupt legislation.


On edit...I'm pretty sure it's Hamdi v. Rice. I think.

[MrCoffee]

29. Here's a Washington Post article on the changes enacted under the MCA

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/08/AR2006080801276.html

The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments.

Officials say the amendments would alter a U.S. law passed in the mid-1990s that criminalized violations of the Geneva Conventions, a set of international treaties governing military conduct in wartime. The conventions generally bar the cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment of wartime prisoners without spelling out what all those terms mean.

The draft U.S. amendments to the War Crimes Act would narrow the scope of potential criminal prosecutions to 10 specific categories of illegal acts against detainees during a war, including torture, murder, rape and hostage-taking.

Left off the list would be what the Geneva Conventions refer to as "outrages upon personal dignity" of a prisoner and deliberately humiliating acts -- such as the forced nakedness, use of dog leashes and wearing of women's underwear seen at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq -- that fall short of torture.

These amendments were made into law in Section 6 of the MCA.

[pnwmom]

8. What about a civil trial? As in O.J.?

[MrCoffee]

13. What would be the grounds for a civil suit?

There are all kinds of jurisdictional issues to get over...I'm not at all sure if you could bring a Bevins action in this case.

[pnwmom]

21. For any Americans, same as in Rodney King -- abrogation of civil rights.

I don't know how it would work for citizens of other countries.

[MrCoffee]

25. It's called a Bivens action, and I'm searching for something on it...

I seem to recall reading an an appellate opinion holding that a foreign national couldn't bring a Bivens action against the CIA...I'm trying to find it.

[originalpckelly]

16. I seem to remember something about people losing a private right of action.

In English, a private right of action is the ability of someone to file a civil suit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_right_of_action

I also remember hearing that they created no "cause of action", which is an allowance for people to file suit specifically outlined in a law.

[pnwmom]

22. Did you hear that in connection with the torture issue? n/t

[leftstreet]

11. I knew that when Cheney was on the teevee last fall

claiming the Democrats were on board for torture and essentially told the Bush Admin to go ahead.

It's fucked up.

[closeupready]

23. You are correct.

And if the Military Commissions Act of 2006 does not suffice, they will search long and hard to find something which will.

[EFerrari]

27. I have to believe that at some point, the people who were tortured

and how are now mentally or physically destroyed or dead will get justice.

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. no they won't

We are still waiting for the 1980s mess to see the light of day

Empires, ain't they grand? As well as the good imperial citizens who defend them?

[EFerrari]

36. But, it needn't originate here, Nadin. Fujimori just got 25 years in Peru.

There are cases all over Latin America in progress as I'm sure you know.

The decline seems to be somewhat under way.

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. It will not. At this point I am convinced that those who

committed these crimes and those who obeyed the orders (save E-3 and bellow) will see the docket after the fall of Empire. Not a second before...and not in US courts

As to Fujimori, got to read the coverage in a center right Mexican paper that is a shadow of itself.. but still far better than my fish wrap

:-)

the editorial page was a beaut

[G_j]

31. never mind

never mind

[MrCoffee]

32. No he didn't - Nay on S.3930

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00259

[G_j]

33. wow, sorry

I just read that he had here:
http://2parse.com/?p=40

just goes to show... :shrug:

[Independent_Liberal]

37. You want to concede defeat, fine. I'll fight for justice for the rest of my life if I have to.

[caseymoz]

43. Wrong. The act is unconstitutional, as it violates the Convention Against Torture.

We're a signatory to that Convention, and it was ratified by the Senate and signed by the President. A treaty made under the Constitution, is the Supreme Law of the Land equal to the Constitution. No law passed can legally instruct the government to violate a Treaty. You'd have to ratify the Constitution. The Convention required the US to set up the statutes against torture that it now has, and those statutes are guided in their enforcement by the treaty. Whatever the Military Commissions Act says, at most it's a psychological deterrent, not a shield. It won't stand up in court.

It might be a little more difficult, but the Bushocrats will be made to pay for what they did.

[dflprincess]

44. Somehow it just doesn't seem right that Lynndie England

is going to be the only one to get punished for this. At the time of her court martial, I thought it was a good thing to hold everyone responsible, but if the big fish aren't going to fry, Obama might as well give her a pardon.

[Fire1]

45. If that's the case, looks like it's a wrap.