Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Pentagon to reject Geneva standard for detainee care

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Pentagon to reject Geneva standard for detainee care: "Monday, June 5, 2006 - Page updated at 12:00 AM | By Julian E. Barnes | Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that bans 'humiliating and degrading treatment,' according to military officials. That step would mark a potentially permanent shift away from strict adherence to international human-rights standards.

The decision culminates a debate within the Department of Defense but will not become final until the Pentagon makes new guidelines public, a step that has been delayed.

However, the State Department fiercely opposes the military's decision to exclude Geneva Convention protections and has been pushing for the Pentagon and White House to reconsider, Defense officials said.

For more than a year, the Pentagon has been redrawing policies on detainees and interrogation, and intends to issue a new Army Field Manual, which, along with accompanying directives, represents core instructions to U.S. soldiers worldwide.

The process has been beset by debate and controversy, but the decision to omit Geneva Convention protections from a principal directive comes at a time of growing worldwide criticism of U.S. detention practices and the conduct of American forces in Iraq. ...

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Andrew Sullivan | Bush: sealed off from rational assessment of empirical reality, from basic concepts of responsibility and accountability

Andrew Sullivan | The Daily Dish: "The Bush Conundrum | 01 Jun 2006 03:41 pm | A reader writes:

I think there is no doubt that Bush must know that many of the statements he makes are simply false. There's too much of a track record of this to doubt it.
On the other hand, it is also quite clear that Bush is in well over his head, and he has turned over the actual thinking about his job to others - Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, etc. He pretty much has abandoned leadership on issues except when he gets something fixed in his head, and then he ignores any advice or information to the contrary.
In other words, the answer to your questions: 'Is he lying? Or is he just drowning in a job that he is simply unable to do?' is 'Both.'

There is also the unnerving possibility of psychological denial. I was struck, for example, by the fact that the president recently cited Abu Ghraib as one event that he regrets and that has deeply damaged the war on terror. So I scratch my head and ask myself: has it occurred to him that even the various official reports he commissioned trace that incident to decisions the president himself made to relax detainee standards in the war? Is he even aware that these incidents, again according to his own government's reports, have been replicated in every theater of combat? And yet, when given the chance to draw a line under all this, and embrace and enforce the McCain Amendment, the president still refused, and issued a signing statement reserving the right to break the law.

My only rational conclusion is that the president cannot face the consequences of his own actions and so simply blocks them out. Confronting Cheney and Rumsfeld on this is beyond his capacity. His psyche, rescued from alcoholism by rigid fundamentalism, has been sealed off from rational assessment of empirical reality, from basic concepts of responsibility and accountability. The people he has surrounded himself with have only one thing in common: the knowledge that the maintenance of his denial keeps them in their jobs. And so we have this bizarre unending war of attrition, where no strategic logic can be discerned, where goals are set with no means to attain them, and where American soldiers and Iraqi civilians are put through a grinder of brutality and terror. I'm saying this as someone who desperately wants us to succeed, but simply cannot understand why the president refuses to commit the necessary resources to do so."

Honor System

Honor System: "WEST POINT HONOR SYSTEM |
ITS OBJECTIVES AND PROCEDURES
By MAJOR GENERAL MAXWELL D. TAYLOR | Superintendent, U. S. Military Academy

"The purpose of West Point, therefore, is not to act as a glorified drill sergeant but to lay the foundation upon which a career in growth of military knowledge can be based and to accompany it by two indispensable additions; first, such a general education as educated men find necessary for intelligent intercourse with one another; and second, the inculcation of a set of virtues, admirable always; but indispensable in a soldier. Men may be inexact or even untruthful in ordinary matters and suffer as a consequence only the disesteem of their associates or the inconvenience of unfavorable litigation, but the inexact or untruthful soldier trifles with the lives of his fellow men and with the honor of his government, and it is therefore no matter of pride but rather a stern disciplinary necessity that makes West Point require of her students a character for trustworthiness that knows no evasions." Thus, the Honor System has its roots both in ethical considerations and in practical military necessity.

West Point Grads Against The War- Laws And treatıes violated by President George W

West Point Grads Against The War- Laws And treatıes violated by President George W: " Vice-President Richard Cheney, public officials under their authority, and members of the U.S. military under their command

The U. S. Constitution, Art. VI, para. 2, makes treaties adopted by the U.S. part of the “law of the land.” Thus, a violation of the U. N. Charter, Hague IV, Geneva Conventions, etc. is also a violation of U.S. federal law.

U.S. Federal Law 18 U.S.C. § 2441 (War Crimes Act of 1996) makes committing a war crime, defined as: “…a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party…” punishable by fine, imprisonment, or death.

And the following treaties and charters which define: wars of aggression, war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity:

Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV)

Art. 55. The occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator…of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct.

U.N. Gen. Assembly Res. 3314

Defines the crime of aggression as “... the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State…or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations…”

Nuremberg Tribunal Charter

Principle VI: “The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace: Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties;
...
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) 809.ART.90 (20), makes it clear that military personnel need to obey the "lawful command of his superior officer," 891.ART.91 (2), the "lawful order of a warrant officer", 892.ART.92 (1) the "lawful general order", 892.ART.92 (2) "lawful order". In each case, military personnel have an obligation and a duty to only obey Lawful orders and indeed have an obligation to disobey Unlawful orders, including orders by the president that do not comply with the UCMJ. The moral and legal obligation is to the U.S. Constitution and not to those who would issue unlawful orders, especially if those orders are in direct violation of the Constitution and the UCMJ.

Among the international laws and treaties that a U.S. pre-emptive attack on Iraq may violate are: ...