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chelidonRosa Brooks: Did Bush commit war crimes?
(subhed: Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld could expose officials to prosecution)
This gives me hope. Not that I'm merely on a vendetta against Bush or his cronies in particular (no, really ;>), but it has deeply and morally vexed me that Bush's legal rationale (as so clearly described in the article above), came down to "we're Americans, and the Geneva Conventions don't apply to us unless it's convenient and expedient, and they're not, so they don't." Flimsy justifications and legalisms, such as labelling anyone who disagrees with us as an "unlawful enemy combatant" were so transparently aimed entirely at ignoring all parts of international law and common civil rights the Bush administration found inconvenient, they made us a laughing-stock and object of scorn around the world (and made any claims of "civil rights abuses" against China and other nations laughably hypocritical), as well as undermining decades of heroic work designed to minimally protect the rights of people in what are truly the most inhumane and horrific environments in this world -- war zones.
Is the tide turning? Has the wave of laws and statements from the Bush administration even George Orwell would find too absurd to put to pen finally hit their high-water mark, and may be seen to recede from view thereafter? One can only hope -- hope, and work to elect a more sane, and more humane, government.
Having an enemy to fight does not remove any government, or the individuals comprising that government, from the necessity of following the rules of law, both international and domestic, nor of acting in ways which reflect basic human rights, much less the loftier ideals our Founding Fathers set in place as the guiding principles of this democratically-ruled nation. Many officials in the Bush administration and those elements of the U.S. military and intelligence community who have carried out their misguided and illegal policies should be wary of and perhaps thoroughly terrified by one single word out of history: Nuremberg.
(subhed: Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld could expose officials to prosecution)
This gives me hope. Not that I'm merely on a vendetta against Bush or his cronies in particular (no, really ;>), but it has deeply and morally vexed me that Bush's legal rationale (as so clearly described in the article above), came down to "we're Americans, and the Geneva Conventions don't apply to us unless it's convenient and expedient, and they're not, so they don't." Flimsy justifications and legalisms, such as labelling anyone who disagrees with us as an "unlawful enemy combatant" were so transparently aimed entirely at ignoring all parts of international law and common civil rights the Bush administration found inconvenient, they made us a laughing-stock and object of scorn around the world (and made any claims of "civil rights abuses" against China and other nations laughably hypocritical), as well as undermining decades of heroic work designed to minimally protect the rights of people in what are truly the most inhumane and horrific environments in this world -- war zones.
Is the tide turning? Has the wave of laws and statements from the Bush administration even George Orwell would find too absurd to put to pen finally hit their high-water mark, and may be seen to recede from view thereafter? One can only hope -- hope, and work to elect a more sane, and more humane, government.
Having an enemy to fight does not remove any government, or the individuals comprising that government, from the necessity of following the rules of law, both international and domestic, nor of acting in ways which reflect basic human rights, much less the loftier ideals our Founding Fathers set in place as the guiding principles of this democratically-ruled nation. Many officials in the Bush administration and those elements of the U.S. military and intelligence community who have carried out their misguided and illegal policies should be wary of and perhaps thoroughly terrified by one single word out of history: Nuremberg.
