It's now official: George W. Bush is a war criminal, in violation of both the Geneva convention and US criminal codes. [See also: International Humanitarian Law - Treaties & Documents] Predictably, however, the GOP is already making plans to make legal —after the fact —crimes that Bush has already committed.[See ABC News] There is no slicker way to exalt Bush above the law than to simply make legal the crimes he's already committed.I have more to say about ex post facto attempts to make legal the numerous crimes Bush has committed but first the Hamden decision to date: in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, handed down June 29, the United States Supreme Court ruled that George W. Bush exceeded his authority. Neither the Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), nor the so-called inherent powers give Bush the legal authority to set up military tribunals at Guantanamo.
For those of us who have maintained for some time now that Bush is a "war criminal" —who has breached both international conventions and US criminal codes —the high court's decision is vindication. In effect, SCOTUS has said that for a period of some five years, the Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney gang has been guilty of violating the Third Convention on treatment of prisoners of war as well as a US federal law of 1996 which binds the US executive to those relevant parts of the Geneva convention.
Predictably, a conspiratorial GOP is scrambling to let Bush off the hook —though he is most certainly guilty of violating US and international law. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., says that Congress will reverse the Supreme Court's declaration and Sen. Arlen Specter is already at work on the language of the bill. I submit to Sen. McCain that Congress does not have the authority to reverse a decision of the supreme court; it can only pass a new law addressing its objections. The effect of any new law is of that date; it cannot be retroactive in its effects. There is no precedent for excusing culprits ex post facto!
Ex post facto is latin for "from something done afterward" or "after the fact". Ex post facto law is retroactive. On it its face, this is unfair but more importantly, it is blatantly unconstitutional
Bush and his GOP co-conspirators are routinely at odds with the supreme law of the land but also simple common sense. Because ex post facto laws change —after the fact —the legal consequences of acts already committed, the ex post facto law becomes an instrument of oppression and tyranny. Hoping to crack down on dissenters, for example, a tyrannical government need only make the voicing of certain opinions a crime but only after they've been printed, broadcast or spoken. Such a government need only make the law, round up the usual suspects, and prosecute them for actions that were legal at the time of their commission. Conversely, the dictator-in-chief in such a society, need only subvert the very foundations of law and order itself and demand that his actions be made legal —after the fact! Convenience is the enemy of the rule of law.No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
The notion that Congress can somehow exculpate Bush for the crimes he's already committed is not merely absurd, it's seditious and dangerous —a short road to tyranny and dictatorship.
To her credit, Sen. Dianne Feinstein has refuted every dubious point made by Sen. John McCain in defense of this pernicious strategy. She has shown the Democrats the way. If the Democratic party is to have any future at all, it must begin now to oppose with its every fiber a creeping, insidious Bush dictatorship. Allowing even a bright and capable leader the rope he needs to simply improvise his way through office is nothing less than the death of the rule of law.
An update from the Washington Post:
Around the blogosphere, some great comments. Here's a excerpt from Rubicon, but I recommend the entire post:Democrats urge broader view of Bush war powers
By Matt Spetalnick
Reuters
Sunday, July 2, 2006; 4:12 PMWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior Democrats called on Sunday for a broader review of whether President George W. Bush had overstepped his war powers after the Supreme Court struck down his administration's Guantanamo military tribunals.Seeking to capitalize on the sharpest judicial rebuke yet of Bush's tactics in the war on terrorism, Democratic critics said the ruling opens the door for a closer look at complaints he had improperly bypassed Congress in other areas as well.
The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the military commissions created by Bush to try foreign terrorism suspects held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo were unlawful and violated the Geneva Conventions. ...
The big question now is how Bush and his Republican Congress will respond. So far, they seem to think that they can retroactively legalize what Bush has done. That will not be easy to do. Hamdan raises the stakes: it's war crimes we're talking about.A little legislative fix won't erase war crimes, though a few resignations and impeachments would certainly be a move in the right direction. It's a hopeful sign that Democrats are not the only people now talking about the seriousness of the situation. Andrew Sullivan has written thoughtful posts on the subject (here and here), and he points to an analysis of the case by the Cato Institute that emphasizes "command responsibility" and military "orders." Editorial boards that have until recently treated Bush's authoritarian claims with deference—including the Washington Post and the New York Times—have changed their tunes.The Existentialist CowboyMany more voters are becoming disillusioned, too, and Congress may well change hands in November. A new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll shows a 14-percent advantage for Democrats, with the gap up to 26 points among women. With a Democratic Congress, we might even see the legislative branch join the judiciary in a drive to restore nonmonarchical government.
Supreme Court
Guantanamo
War Crimes
11 comments:
There is a much greater danger in the assertion of ex post facto 'legal' doctrines, more damaging to freedom than the proposition of Bush declaring himself innocent after the fact by changing the laws. That is the prospect of him retroactively declaring a large number of US citizens guilty of some offense that is not currently illegal.
There is nothing more frightening than dealing with someone who is demonstrably insane, because there is no way of predicting what they are capable of doing. Bush has consistently demonstrated that there is no act so outrageous that he will not only commit it, but argue later that it was justified. And as in this case, continue on doing it. Have any of the current Guantanamo inmates been released as a result of the Supremes' ruling?
Sadly, the current situation makes me think of an episode of the original Star Trek series, where Kirk's body is taken over by an insane ex-girlfriend. Spock dealt with this by convening a competency hearing to determine if Kirk had lost his mind, and therefore his authority as Captain. One might well wish that such a mechanism was in place WRT the President of the United States. Two signatures from two psychiatrists, and they pack ol' Georgie off in a strait jacket. But, alas, this is just an unattainable fantasy.
That is the prospect of him retroactively declaring a large number of US citizens guilty of some offense that is not currently illegal.
I fully agree. While the founders were most certainly aware that a tyrannical government could declare an act "illegal" ex post facto and thus prosecute those currently innocent. But the principle works the other way as well. A tyrant cannot simply make his acts legal as he goes along. Not even Kings were allowed to get away with that.
Bush has consistently demonstrated that there is no act so outrageous that he will not only commit it, but argue later that it was justified
It has been Bushco's modus operandi and a lesson that Americans should have learned early. The raison d'etre for war against Iraq, for example, is not the same case that was made after the fact.
How much longer are we going to let these criminals get away with it.
This time Congress must be stopped. Bush cannot get away with this unless he has complicit, guilty help from his enablers and co-conspirators in Congress.
I am sure your assesment of the US political system is correct, Len. In the British and Australian parliamentary democracies the kind of legal revisionism you denounce is in fact quite legal! Parliament can overturn previous court decisions, make retrospective laws, in fact, do all the things you rightfully denounce as against basic principles of natural justice.
It all goes back to Cromwell and Charles II, but there you go. I have no doubt, however, that the US system is different, the demarcations between legislature and judiciary are clear, and you are right to denounce the kind of revisionism taking place. A bad day for America. Your politicians need to stand firm on this. Ex post facto legislation is deadly to democracy and justice.
Congratulations, Len. You may have set the liberal record for most liberal lies spewed forth in one liberal diatribe. Let's try a few facts. Fact #1--Pres. Bush has never wavered on his reasons for going to war against Saddam. The justification was that Saddam had WMD (proven to be true), that he threatened to use them against us (a fact that's a matter of public record and supported at the time by Kerry, Gore, both Clinton's, and scores or other libs), that he had connections with Bin Laden (a fact verified by the 9/11 Commission and records discovered after Saddam's capture), and that the world would be a safer place with one less murderous dictator on the loose. Those were the reasons given before the war, and they haven't changed. Fact #2--Pres. Bush has not violated one single American law or the Constitution at any time in any way. NSA wiretapping? That program was run in full accordance with the executive order passed by Jimmy "Peanuts For Brains" Carter. It was run with Congressional oversight, as both Republicans and Democrats on the appropriate Congressional committees were kept "in the loop". It was in compliance with at least a half-dozen federal court cases since the 1960's that said you don't need a warrant to wiretap phone calls originating or going to international locations when the purpose of said wiretapping is the protection of national security. Phone and banking records? Perfectly legal--no laws were broken. The NY Times, however, did commit treason when their editors took it upon themselves to declassify these programs and put them on the front page. Editor Keller put lives in danger, gave aid and comfort to the enemy, and damaged the U.S. war effort. He should be prosecuted for his treasonous acts and spend the rest of his life in Gitmo with the rest of his terrorist buddies.
It alarms me that you liberals are so consumed with hatred for Pres. Bush that you would put American lives in danger and undermine the war on terror just to damage the Bush administration and reclaim the White House in 2008. Here's one final fact to chew on. If Joe Lieberman decided to run for President in 2008, a lot of Christian conservatives like myself would support him. We don't agree with most of Lieberman's social positions, but he is rock solid on the war on terror (just like Bush) and we would support him. Liberals, on the other hand, won't support anyone who is any farther to the right than Josef Stalin, Al Gore, Fidel Castro, or John Kerry. Liberals want America to be defeated so that your socialist, globalist agenda can be forced upon the rest of us. Liberalism is a cancer that, just like Islamofacism (its sister creed), must be destroyed before it destroys us.
damien, I am confident that I could turn up the specific, "outragous" abuses of King George that so outraged the colonists that they would prohibit them in the article that I quote above. To my way of thinking, the very concept is absurd on its face. Prosecuting people for doing something that was legal at the time it was done is clearly and prima facie absurd. It's tantamount to punishing someone because they lacked the power of clairvoyance to intuit what they future intentions of Congress or Parliament might be. And, of course, the converse if also true. Bush, I'm sure, just wishes to rule by decree and how much more convenient if he can just make legal whatever he's already done.
In fact, such ex post facto is one of the defining characteristics of tyranny.
Congratulations, Len. You may have set the liberal record for most liberal lies spewed forth in one liberal diatribe.
I don't "spew"; I leave that to conservatives and Bush.
Let's try a few facts. Fact #1--Pres. Bush has never wavered on his reasons for going to war against Saddam.
He, in fact, wavered. The reasons for war before the war are not the reasons given AFTER the war when it became clear that Saddam did not have WMD. At that time, Bushco forward a different reason for war. Saddam, it was said then, was a bad man even if he had no WMD and Iraqi were better off with him gone. But even that is a lie. Iraqis are clearly worse off under Bush than Saddam.
The justification was that Saddam had WMD (proven to be true)
That's just a bald-faced lie, Hondo. If there are WMD in Iraq, produce them! Where are they? When were they discovered? What did they consist of? What Bush had said was proof of a biological lab turned out to have been a beat up old trailer with a torn and weather beaten tarpaulin stretched over it. No chemical weapons at all.
And, of course, everyone knows about the yellow cake story and how Bushies "outed" the wife of Ambassador Joe Wilson because he dared to tell the truth about Bush's deliberate attempt to defraud the American people.
And we mustn't forget Colin Powell's presentation to the UN. Powell has since apologized for having deliberately lied to the UN with a gestalt of lies, ten year old, out of date satellite photos and a stolen student papers which Powell cites as if it were an official, agency memo. It was, of course, pure bunkum.
Bush not only LIED at every step of the way, he and his gang of co-conspirators did so deliberately and methodically. This was not just a spontaneous breaking of the law! No, this was a planned deception, a hoax, a conspiracy to defraud. The magnitude and the consequences of this hoax —perpetrated as it was upon the sovereign American people —is in itself an act of high treason.
that he threatened to use them against us (a fact that's a matter of public record and supported at the time by Kerry, Gore, both Clinton's, and scores or other libs), that he had connections with Bin Laden (a fact verified by the 9/11 Commission and records discovered after Saddam's capture), and that the world would be a safer place with one less murderous dictator on the loose.
Saddam never threatened the United States with an attack and invasion of U.S. territory.
If you refer to what he might have said about US troops invading a sovereign country —so what? Let me put to you this way: if a foreign troop invaded my country, I would shoot the sunovabitch!
As the US invasion of Iraqi is illegal, it is a war of naked aggression, a war crime under Nuremberg. Secondly, any resistance to that illegal attack and invasion is lawful under international principles. At last, there are no terrorists who merely oppose the illegal US invasion. That's another Bush lie. The word "insurgency" is an Orwellian exercise intended to distract and deceive. In fact, Bush is in the middle of a civil war and uncontrolled sectarian violence that his NEOCON base and advisors utterly failed to foresee even as they failed to take into account the reality of Iraqi society and the nature of the Iraqi state.
Those were the reasons given before the war, and they haven't changed.
They changed often. You weren't paying attention. The very first raison d'etre for war was terrorism. Please tell this forum WHAT Saddam had to do with terrorism? What did Saddam have to do with 911? Please cite a single statement by Bush or anyone in his administration that Saddam was attacked because he conspired with Bin Laden to attack New York. The fact of the matter is this: Bush not only wavered he improvise from day to day, issuing new and often conflicting statements about the nature of the US attack, invasion, and now —the illegal occupation. It is, in fact, an ongoing war crime. I have an opinion by SCOTUS to back me up.
Fact #2--Pres. Bush has not violated one single American law or the Constitution at any time in any way.
That's not Fact #2 because it's a LIE! Bush has, in fact, committed capital crimes under US law: TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 118 > § 2441 To wit: "(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
(b) Circumstances.— The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act). "
NSA wiretapping? That program was run in full accordance with the executive order passed by Jimmy "Peanuts For Brains" Carter.
Not so! Bush failed to get warrants. Secondly, if it had been run as you false claim that it was, then why did Arlen Specter scramble to re-write the law making legal —after the fact —what Bush had already done?
Phone and banking records? Perfectly legal--no laws were broken.Not so! They are violations of the Bill of Rights unless they are carried out upon a warrant issue prior to the act and specifically describing the probable cause. Read the Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Clearly —even the original statue allow such blanket, widespread searches violated the Fourth Amendment and the leadership of this nation is very nearly criminally remiss for not having challenged their constitutionality.
The NY Times, however, did commit treason when their editors took it upon themselves to declassify these programs and put them on the front page.
That's just utter bullshit and stupid right wing propaganda! The NYT did not commit treason for having exposed criminality inside the Bush administration.
Editor Keller put lives in danger
More propaganda and nonsense not even worthy of Rush Limbaugh. As we are not engaged in a declared and Constitution war but, rather, a war of naked aggression not authorize by either Congress or the UN resolution, then no one had given "....aid and comfort" to ANY enemy. Moreover, Bush has never defined the enemy? Is it the Iraqi regime? No...that's just a puppet regime established by the US. Is it the Iraqi people? No...Bush himself claims that we are on their side? Is it the insurgency? Well....maybe except Bush doesn't really know who or what the insurgency is! Secondly, if the insurgency consist of people opposed to an illegal occupation of THEIR country, they are protected by the same set of International laws that clearly spell out the nature of Bush's crime even as it makes ILLEGAL Bush attack and invasion of their country.
At last: the Iraqi citizen is worse off under Bush than Saddam. Under Saddam, he, at least had running water and electricity. It is no accident that the US military refused to do body counts. I am confident that had they done so, it would have proven my assertion that Bush's body count among Iraqi civilians is much, much higher than that of Saddam.
He should be prosecuted for his treasonous acts and spend the rest of his life in Gitmo with the rest of his terrorist buddies.
No fair! I said the same thing of Bush —first!
It alarms me that you liberals are so consumed with hatred for Pres. Bush that you would put American lives in danger and undermine the war on terror just to damage the Bush administration and reclaim the White House in 2008.
No! It is Bush who had endangered American lives by undermining any prestige and pro-American feeling that the United States might have enjoyed at one time. In fact, there is not ONE industrialized nation now in which a majority of citizens entertain a favorable view of the US. Bush endangered American lives by committing a volunteer to an illegal war of naked aggression against a sovereign nation that even Bush now concedes never attacked the United States and did not possess anything resembling WMD at the time Bush said it did. Iraq NEVER posed a threat to the security of the United States.
Here's one final fact to chew on. If Joe Lieberman decided to run for President in 2008, a lot of Christian conservatives like myself would support him.
A final fact? Indeed, your own delusions, Hondo, are the only things about which you can speak with any authority or certainty.
Nothing else said by you on this post has been, in any way, true, logical, or cogent. Moreover, nothing you have said has been consistent with either US Codes, Constitution, or the principle of International Law which SCOTUS now says Bush is bound to.
At last, hondo, your ad hominem use of the perfectly good word "liberal" doesn't work anymore.
"Liberal" is fron the latin "liber" which means "free" So, in context, I am free and you are a slave. Liberal and proud of it. The GOP, meanwhile, has in fact supported every abrogation of the rule of law favored by Bush. The result unless checked by lovers of liberty i.e. "liberals" will be the very dictatorship so coveted by Bush when he said "This would be a lot easier if this was a dictatorship....heh heh heh ...just as long as I'm the dictator... heh heh heh"
(This may be a little long for a mere comment. But, in the future, I may in a full article routinely and in even more detail dissect and vivisect the plethora of myths, lies and just plain ol' bullshit that is often spread around by Bush and Bushy!)
Hondo, what is the colour of the sky on your planet? Alternatively, what hallucinogenics have you been taking daily for the past five years? I have seldom read such a collection of idiocies as that in your post. Well done, Len, for the masterful way in which you have rebutted all of Hondo's ludicrous assertion. I'm afraid, though, that Hondo wouldn't know truth and facts if they sliced and diced and fried and fed him his brains...
Here is the etymology of the word "liberal", for Hondo's edification:
liberal (adj.) Look up liberal at Dictionary.com
c.1375, from O.Fr. liberal "befitting free men, noble, generous," from L. liberalis "noble, generous," lit. "pertaining to a free man," from liber "free," from PIE base *leudheros (cf. Gk. eleutheros "free"), probably originally "belonging to the people" (though the precise semantic development is obscure), from *leudho- "people" (cf. O.C.S. ljudu, Lith. liaudis, O.E. leod, Ger. Leute "nation, people"). Earliest reference in Eng. is to the liberal arts (L. artes liberales; see art (n.)), the seven attainments directed to intellectual enlargement, not immediate practical purpose, and thus deemed worthy of a free man (the word in this sense was opposed to servile or mechanical). Sense of "free in bestowing" is from 1387. With a meaning "free from restraint in speech or action" (1490) liberal was used 16c.-17c. as a term of reproach. It revived in a positive sense in the Enlightenment, with a meaning "free from prejudice, tolerant," which emerged 1776-88. Purely in ref. to political opinion, "tending in favor of freedom and democracy" it dates from c.1801, from Fr. libéral, originally applied in Eng. by its opponents (often in Fr. form and with suggestions of foreign lawlessness) to the party favorable to individual political freedoms. But also (especially in U.S. politics) tending to mean "favorable to government action to effect social change," which seems at times to draw more from the religious sense of "free from prejudice in favor of traditional opinions and established institutions" (and thus open to new ideas and plans of reform), which dates from 1823. Source
This is why I always take being called a liberal as the highest of compliments!
Thanks rurikid!
And given the GOP approval ratings, they had best not try to demonize a word that literally means "free" and is historically associated with "freedom". The right wing use of the word has always been premised upon sheer ignorance and the deliberate misrepresentation of that word by demogoguges like McCarthy, Limbaugh, Coulter et al.
Moreover, it has been pointed out to me that the Wall Street Journal also printed the same story about Bush's spying on bank records as did the NYT. The only difference is the WSJ was, in effect, "authorized" by the Bush administration and the NYT was just doing its job. If it's treasonous for NYT to merely make that information public, then it's treason for whomever inside the Bush administration authorized WSJ.
The GOP is not a political party, it's a crime syndicate and Bush co-conspirator.
In the meantime, petition congress and demand that the Democrat filibuster efforts by Arlen Specter to "let off" the only "administration" in US history to be said by a decision of the Supreme Court to be in violation of international and federal statutes.
Wow! One rarely comes across an example of aggressive stupidity and willful ignorance approaching the Olympic gold-medal performance of Hondo's comment above. As a demonstration of the deleterious effects of living in the neoCON echo-chamber it is a tour de force, devoid of fact or logical argument while rife with self-delusion and empty partisan rhetoric. I would go beyond Rurikid's questioning 'what's the colour of your sky', and get right to the point, ie. "Have we forgotten to take our medications today?" His self-identification as a conservative Christian amplifies my belief that the founding fathers should have guaranteed freedom from religion in the constitution.
While Hondo's utter disconnect from reality is disturbing, the truly frightening thing is found, not in his comments but in his blogger profile. He calls himself an EDUCATOR! Some unsuspecting parents somewhere are subjecting their innocent children to this idiot's semiarticulate drooling. He is not only a danger to the nation now (assuming he votes), but his influence will further damage the country in generations to come. There is a schoolboard and a PTA somewhere that desperately needs to be notified.
Daniel, you wrote:
devoid of fact or logical argument while rife with self-delusion and empty partisan rhetoric
It's become an epidemic. I grew up in some deep right wing country, but it was never as malevolent, pernicious, and as vile as it has been recently.
He calls himself an EDUCATOR!
He must teach in Texas, known the world over for having beat out Mississippi for DEAD LAST in "Education". We can thank GWB for that. That and the record number of people executed and the most horrific air pollution in the nation are Bush's "gift" and legacy to the people of Texas.
Ironically, Hondo may have made the best case yet for doing something about the sorry state of education in this nation. He is a specimen to be pointed to and cited in evidence of our need to teach elementary logic and, of course, history and the Constitution. Hondo is most surely the child that was left behind. Way behind!
Some unsuspecting parents somewhere are subjecting their innocent children to this idiot's semiarticulate drooling. He is not only a danger to the nation now (assuming he votes), but his influence will further damage the country in generations to come.
In metro areas like Houston, Dallas-Ft Worth, and to a lesser degree Austin, you will find entire neighborhoods where brains have been traded for oversized pick up trucks, SUV's, and hummers.
conservative Christian
Lately —an oxymoron. Hondo, however, is just a moron. And he posts here for free. At least Bill O'Reilly gets paid for being stupid. If I may paraphrase Rick in Casblanca: I don't mind a parasite; I object to a cut rate one!
Post a Comment