To tell the truth, I'm not even sure if this has anything to do with what y'all are talking about, but, I've just begun reading some of the Marty Lederman posts which Arne linked to above and on November 21, 2005, he wrote:

For now, however, I'd like to focus only on the question whether these techniques are federal crimes under two statutes: The federal anti-torture law (18 U.S.C. 2340A), and the federal assault statute (18 U.S.C. 113). […]

[…] How could OLC possibly have concluded that waterboarding and "cold cell" are not necessarily torture? Well, we won't know for certain unless and until we see OLC's specific legal analysis. But surely, a large part of the explanation must be that the Senate (at the urging of the first President Bush) insisted upon adopting extremely restrictive readings of certain key terms of the Convention Against Torture as a condition of its ratification of that treaty -- restrictive terms that Congress itself adopted in the torture statute.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2005/11/cia-enhanced-interrogation-techniques.html

Thanks for the answer, poddy102. It's all a lot to process...still working on it.

The original wording of the Reservations by the United States in reference to the Convention Against Torture is presented at the UN website, here [at sig]:

http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&id=129&chapter=4&lang=en

Finland, Netherlands, Sweden objected to the US reservations [also on that page].

I remember when Gregory insisted on an answer to the question of who ordered the Niger Documents to be forged.

I remember when Gregory insisted on an answer to the question of who ordered the Niger Documents to be forged.

so, this is something s/he posted on this thread [I think] before. [An earlier comment from Amerigo tied this in with Glenn's topic here.]:

George Orwell [From an unpublished letter to the Times of London dated 12 October 1942:]

By chaining up German prisoners in response to similar action by the Germans, we descend, at any rate in the eyes of the ordinary observer, to the level of our enemies. It is unquestionable when one thinks of the history of the past ten years that there is a deep moral difference between democracy and Fascism, but if we go on the principle of an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth we simply cause that difference to be forgotten.

Moreover, in the matter of ruthlessness we are unlikely to compete successfully with our enemies. . . .As a result of our action the Germans will chain up more British prisoners, we shall have to follow suit by chaining up more Axis prisoners, and so it will continue till logically all the prisoners on either side will be in chains.

In practice, of course, we shall become disgusted with the process first, and we shall announce that the chaining up will now cease, leaving, almost certainly, more British than Axis prisoners in fetters. We shall thus have acted both barbarously and weakly, damaging our own good name without succeeding in terrorising the enemy.

Yesterday in another thread, Bamage brought this article to our attention:

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Court_Puhttp://rawstory.com/news/2008/Court_Public_VP_records_to_be_0119.htmlblic_VP_records_to_be_0119.html

A federal district court judge has ruled that outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney, who leaves office on Tuesday with an approval rating of just 13 percent, will be the sole determining authority on the public release of his vice presidential records...

I've been doing some reading at Balkinization, where Marty Lederman blogged. In "Addington Speaks!", [link at sig] he talks about the issue of Vice Presidential [non]-compliance with Executive Order 12958.

I freely admit to sometimes not being too quick on the uptake but:

How can a detainee be denied "prisoner of war" status and at the same be accused of being a "war criminal"?

From Vandevelt's testimony about Jawad:

[Page 5, footnote 4] “I do recall that one of the more astute prosecutors in the office questioned whether attacking a lawful target (uniformed enemy soldier) with a lawful weapon (a hand grenade) in the midst of an armed conflict could plausibly be considered a violation of the law of war. […]”

[Dicision at link-at sig]

I think the prosecutors at Guantanamo agreed, if I understand the what you're [both] saying:

"[…] the theory that any attack on US Soldiers by a person meeting the MCA’s definition of unlawful combatant was a war crime ultimately prevailed.”

who said:

Here's my golden rule for America: Unless and until some sovereign nation's military forces attempt to attack our sovereign boundaries or wrongfully imprison or kill American civilians duly invited or allowed on their shores, I don't have a single "extra territorial American interest" worth killing another human being over and not one damn dollar of my tax money should be expropriated to fuel the MIC whose sole purpose is to protect American economic interests without factoring those costs into the actual price of goods and service.

One of Vandevelt’s eventual conclusions:

“[…] I undertook a more comprehensive review of the traditional laws of war. Against my every philosophical inclination, I began to accept that the weight of authority supported the defense position that Mr. Jawad’s alleged acts, even if provable, were not violations of the law of war. […]”

YES!! I was just thinking about the CIA and their “license to do as they please”. They need to be reigned in.

[…] diplomatic efforts by the Obama administration could lead to new locations for a "substantial number" of current detainees. […]

I have full confidence that our just-confirmed and sworn in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is eminently qualified for the challenges she faces.

Photo at link at sig.

wrt: the Army Field Manual

Yes, it has been revised recently...and some of the revisions are classified. So there is a good chance that the CIA won't be giving up their powers wholesale. But I did take heart that an overview of the whole system will take place...I think that's a good place to start.