"Not everything we've done has been illegal." - Coming clean on detainee treatment
It's all collapsing, and and the ultimate "buck" stops on one desk. That's the problem with casting yourself as "the decider."
"In private, Bush administration sub-Cabinet officials who have been instrumental in formulating and sustaining the legal "war paradigm" acknowledge that their efforts to create a system for detainees separate from due process, criminal justice and law enforcement have failed..
One of the key framers of the war paradigm (in which the president in his wartime capacity as commander in chief makes and enforces laws as he sees fit, overriding the constitutional system of checks and balances), who a year ago was arguing vehemently for pushing its boundaries, confesses that he has abandoned his belief in the whole doctrine, though he refuses to say so publicly.....
Yet another Bush legal official, even now at the commanding heights of power, admits that the administration's policies are largely discredited. In its defense, he says without a hint of irony or sarcasm, "Not everything we've done has been illegal." He adds, "Not everything has been ultra vires" -- a legal term referring to actions beyond the law.
posted by mikevotes at
2:02 PM
4 Comments:
Despite all the revelations of criminality, do you think ANY legal action will be taken? Will anyone in the executive branch of any consequence actually pay a legal price for their criminal acts?
I've lost all faith in the system. We are NOT a country of laws, but most demonstrably a country where might makes right.
By
-epm, at 2:17 PM
The most I'll give you is a maybe, but probably not.
Depends on what you're talking about. On the detainee treatment policies, very probably not. Because this was couched as a dispute over the interpretations of law, I find it hard any prosecutor will be tasked with this case.
And, who comitted the crime? The legal "experts" who justifed it the people who implemented it under those justifications? There's no way anyone goes after "the decider" ion this.
By
mikevotes, at 2:32 PM
Well then, isn't all crime -- or at lest non violent crime -- really nothing more than "disputes over the interpretations of law?" Insider trading, accounting irregularities, tax violations, fraud, liability, perjury, etc., etc.
Until someone is willing to demand the "interpretations" have crossed the line and we demand the "interpretations" be settled by the judicial system, we are destined to remain as sheep to those who would impose their unchallenged "interpretations" upon us.
By
-epm, at 2:43 PM
I know what you're saying, and I firmly believe that laws have been broken on multiple fronts through the "war powers" interpretations on detainees and a whole lot of other stuff, but what I'm saying is they will never be prosecuted in any way because of the nature of the crimes.
By
mikevotes, at 2:51 PM
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