 |
|
"Senators concerned about report CIA secretly removed detainees from Iraq," the AP reports. Uh, if the Senators were so concerned, why didn't we see more hearings and investigations of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo abuses? Why is the only person seemingly investigating these issues Seymour Hersh?
Go read Dana Priest's report on a confidential Justice Department memo authorizing the CIA to secretly remove detainees from Iraq for interrogation, a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
The memo was written by Jack L. Goldsmith, former director of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, and a professor of law at the University of Chicago.
Here's a letter Goldsmith co-wrote to Foreign Affairs several months before the September 11th attacks:
. . .But the idea that a nation can decide which international laws to embrace is not new and should not be controversial. In a world of diverse cultures, political systems, and power relationships, international law derives its legitimacy and efficacy from national consent. And the power to give consent naturally implies the power to withhold it.
Spiro describes our position as "anti-internationalist." It is not a rejection of international law, however, to examine whether treaties or customary international rules are consistent with U.S. interests and constitutional standards, or to consider how these international norms should best be implemented within the U.S. system. . .
In other words, he was for the US shucking international law when it chooses long before "9/11 changed everything." 9/11 was just a convenient excuse to torture prisoners and deny them any legal representation and stomp on the Geneva Conventions. And just to remind everyone -- those tactics haven't worked. Look at Iraq -- Goldsmith's policies are failing.
Hearings, Senators? Here is your first witness. Here are some more.
Update: David Meyer has more.
