Can you name me one war in history that hasn't been fought without atrocities by both sides?? Any war ??? Can you name any war in which an enemy was killed with kindness?? To win a war you must defeat your enemy and take away his ability to wage it. That;s why the British marched to Concord, That's why Sherman marched to the sea,that's why the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, that's why Truman dropped the bomb,that's why the Israelis are in Lebanon,and that's why we are in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now when the civilian population takes up arms they are no longer non-combatants and fair game. It's a different kind of war with AlQuada,they don't wear uniforms,but the premise is the same. So if you don't like the idea of CIA and other non-military people getting off the hook on war crimes--well I'm with you, but remember if the get off the hook, Osama gets off the hook for the same reason, he's a civilian. If torturing an enemy gets vital information that saves the lives of troops, I'm sorry get the jumper cables !!! At least at Pearl Harbor the Japs targeted the Navy,what did Osama target when they hit the WTC?? What did the bastards target when they bombed the London busses or the train in Madrid. What was the target when Al Zarqawi slit Nick Bergs throat? I've told you 100 fucking times Bush is too kind to them. Until you are as ruthless or more so than your enemy and until you deny him the ability to wage war--you have stalemate or defeat. They are doing it to us aren't they???? Hell they danced in the streets when the WTC fell. You're just one of them liberal,cum-bye-yah singing,liberal pussies that forgot. Alot of us here don't forget and we pay our bets too. Jesus they were our fucking countrymen and women and then some,have you no decency?
>By R. Jeffrey Smith
>Washington Post Staff Writer
>Wednesday, August 9, 2006; A01
>
>
>
>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 [the] 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.
>
>"People have gotten worried, thinking that it's quite
>likely they might be under a microscope," said a U.S.
>official. Foreigners are using accusations of unlawful
>U.S. behavior as a way to rein in American power, the
>official said, and the amendments are partly meant to
>fend this off.
>
>The plan has provoked concern at the International
>Committee of the Red Cross, the entity responsible for
>safeguarding the Geneva Conventions. A U.S official
>confirmed that the group's lawyers visited the
>Pentagon and the State Department last week to discuss
>the issue but left without any expectation that their
>objections would be heeded.
>
>The administration has not officially released the
>draft amendments. Although they are part of broader
>legislation on military courts still being discussed
>within the government, their substance has already
>been embraced by key officials and will not change,
>two government sources said.
>
>No criminal prosecutions have been brought under the
>War Crimes Act, which Congress passed in 1996 and
>expanded in 1997. But 10 experts on the laws of war,
>who reviewed a draft of the amendments at the request
>of The Washington Post, said the changes could affect
>how those involved in detainee matters act and how
>other nations view Washington's respect for its treaty
>obligations.
>
>"This removal of [any] reference to humiliating and
>degrading treatment will be perceived by experts and
>probably allies as 'rewriting' " the Geneva
>Conventions, said retired Army Lt. Col. Geoffrey S.
>Corn, who was recently chief of the war law branch of
>the Army's Office of the Judge Advocate General.
>Others said the changes could affect how foreigners
>treat U.S. soldiers.
>
>The amendments would narrow the reach of the War
>Crimes Act, which now states in general terms that
>Americans can be prosecuted in federal criminal courts
>for violations of "Common Article 3" of the Geneva
>Conventions, which the United States ratified in 1949.
>
>U.S. officials have long interpreted the War Crimes
>Act as applying to civilians, including CIA officers,
>and former U.S. military personnel. Misconduct by
>serving military personnel is handled by military
>courts, which enforce a prohibition on cruelty and
>mistreatment. The Army Field Manual, which is being
>revised, separately bars cruel and degrading
>treatment, corporal punishment, assault, and sensory
>deprivation.
>
>Common Article 3 is considered the universal minimum
>standard of treatment for civilian detainees in
>wartime. It requires that they be treated humanely and
>bars "violence to life and person," including murder,
>mutilation, cruel treatment and torture. It further
>prohibits "outrages upon personal dignity" such as
>"humiliating and degrading treatment." And it
>prohibits sentencing or execution by courts that fail
>to provide "all the judicial guarantees . . .
>recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."
>
>The risk of possible prosecution of officials, CIA
>officers and former service personnel over alleged
>rough treatment of prisoners arises because the Bush
>administration, from January 2002 until June,
>maintained that the Geneva Conventions' protections
>did not apply to prisoners captured in Afghanistan.
>
>As a result, the government authorized interrogations
>using methods that U.S. military lawyers have
>testified were in violation of Common Article 3; it
>also created a system of military courts not
>specifically authorized by Congress, which denied
>defendants many routine due process rights.
>
>The Supreme Court decided in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld on
>June 29, however, that the administration's policy of
>not honoring the Geneva Conventions was illegal, and
>that prisoners in the fight against al-Qaeda are
>entitled to such protections.
>
>U.S. officials have since responded in three ways:
>They have asked Congress to pass legislation blocking
>the prisoners' right to sue for the enforcement of
>those protections. They have drafted legislation
>allowing the consideration of intelligence-gathering
>needs during interrogations, in place of an absolute
>human rights standard.
>
>They also formulated the War Crimes Act amendments
>spelling out some serious crimes and omitting
>altogether some that U.S. officials describe as less
>serious. For example, two acts considered under
>international law as constituting "outrages" -- rape
>and sexual abuse -- are listed as prosecutable.
>
>But humiliations, degrading treatment and other acts
>specifically deemed as "outrages" by the international
>tribunal prosecuting war crimes in the former
>Yugoslavia -- such as placing prisoners in
>"inappropriate conditions of confinement," forcing
>them to urinate or defecate in their clothes, and
>merely threatening prisoners with "physical, mental,
>or sexual violence" -- would not be among the listed
>U.S. crimes, officials said.
>
>"It's plain that this proposal would abrogate portions
>of Common Article 3," said Derek P. Jinks, a
>University of Texas assistant professor of law and
>author of a forthcoming book on the Geneva
>Conventions. The "entire family of techniques" that
>military interrogators used to deliberately degrade
>and humiliate, and thus coerce, detainees at
>Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Abu Ghraib "is not
>addressed in any way, shape or form" in the new
>language authorizing prosecutions, he said.
>
>At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last
>Wednesday, however, Attorney General Alberto R.
>Gonzales complained repeatedly about the ambiguity and
>broad reach of the phrase "outrages upon personal
>dignity." He said that, "if left undefined, this
>provision will create an unacceptable degree of
>uncertainty for those who fight to defend us from
>terrorist attack."
>
>Lawmakers from both parties expressed skepticism at
>the hearing. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the
>military's top uniformed lawyers had told him they are
>training to comply with Common Article 3 and that
>complying would not impede operations.
>
>If the underlying treaty provision is too vague, asked
>Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), then how could the
>Defense Department instruct its personnel in a July 7
>memorandum to certify their compliance with it? Deputy
>Defense Secretary Gordon England, who had signed the
>memo, responded at the hearing that he was concerned
>that "degrading" and "humiliating" are relative terms.
>
>"I mean, what is degrading in one society may not be
>degrading in another, or may be degrading in one
>religion, not in another religion," England said. "And
>since it does have an international interpretation,
>which is generally, frankly, different than our own,
>it becomes very, very relevant" to define the meaning
>in new legislation.
>
>This viewpoint appears to have won over the top
>uniformed military lawyers, who have criticized other
>aspects of the administration's detainee policy but
>said that they support the thrust of these amendments.
>Maj. Gen. Scott C. Black, the Army's judge advocate
>general, said in testimony that the changes can
>"elevate" the War Crimes Act "from an aspiration to an
>instrument" by defining offenses that can be
>prosecuted instead of endorsing "the ideals of the
>laws of war."
>
>Lawyer David Rivkin, formerly on the staff of the
>Justice Department and the White House counsel's
>office, said "it's not a question of being stingy but
>coming up with a well-defined statutory scheme that
>would withstand constitutional challenges and would
>lead to successful prosecutions." Former Justice
>Department lawyer John C. Yoo similarly said that U.S.
>soldiers and agents should "not be beholden to the
>definition of vague words by international or foreign
>courts, who often pursue nakedly political agendas at
>odds with the United States."
>
>But Corn, the Army's former legal expert, said that
>Common Article 3 was, according to its written
>history, "left deliberately vague because efforts to
>define it would invariably lead to wrongdoers
>identifying 'exceptions,' and because the meaning was
>plain -- treat people like humans and not animals or
>objects." Eugene R. Fidell, president of the nonprofit
>National Institute of Military Justice, said that laws
>governing military conduct are filled with broadly
>described prohibitions that are nonetheless
>enforceable, including "dereliction of duty,"
>"maltreatment" and "conduct unbecoming an officer."
>
>Retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, the Navy's top
>uniformed lawyer from 1997 to 2000 and now dean of the
>Franklin Pierce Law Center, said his view is "don't
>trust the motives of any lawyer who changes a
>statutory provision that is short, clear, and to the
>point and replaces it with something that is much
>longer, more complicated, and includes exceptions
>within exceptions."
