[Peace-discuss] U.S. a nation of laws? G. Greenwald

[John W.]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 12:30 PM, Brussel Morton K.
<mkbrussel at comcast.net>wrote:

Friday April 17, 2009 05:44 EDT
>
> *Eric Holder v. America's legal obligation*s
>
> Can anyone reconcile these?:
>
> *Barack Obama, yesterday:*
>
>     In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who
> carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the
> Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.
>
> *Eric Holder, yesterday:*
>
>     It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to
> protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice
> Department.
>
> *Convention Against Torture -- signed by Reagan in 1988, ratified in 1994
> by Senate:*
>
>     Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture
> are offenses under its criminal law (Article 4) . . . . The State Party in
> territory under whose jurisdiction a person alleged to have committed
> any offense referred to in article 4 is found, shall in the cases
> contemplated in article 5, if it does not extradite him, submit the case to
> its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.
>
>     No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a
> threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency,
> may be invoked as a justification of torture. . . . An order from a superior
> officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of
> torture.
>
> *Geneva Conventions, Article 146:*
>
>     Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for
> persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such
> grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their
> nationality, before its own courts.
>
> *Charter of the International Tribunal at Nuremberg, Article 8:*
>
>     The fact that the Defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government
> or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be
> considered in mitigation of punishment if the Tribunal determines that
> justice so requires.
>
> *U.S. Constitution, Article VI:*
>
>     [A]ll Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the
> United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.
>
> I agree entirely that it is the DOJ lawyers who purported to legalize
> torture and the high-level Bush officials ordering it who are the prime
> culprits and criminals, as compared to, say, CIA agents who were
> proverbially just following orders and were told by the DOJ that what they
> were doing was legal.  But leave aside the question of whether prosecutions
> would produce good or bad outcomes.  After all, the notion that the law can
> and should be ignored whenever we think doing so would produce good results
> or would constitute good policy was the engine that drove Bush lawlessness.
>  If, as Barack Obama proclaimed yesterday, "the United States is a nation of
> laws" and his "Administration will always act in accordance with those
> laws," isn't it the obligation of those opposing prosecution to justify that
> position in light of these legal mandates and long-standing principles of
> Western justice?  How can they be reconciled?
>
> *-- Glenn Greenwald*
>


Very, very simple.  Prosecute the higher-ups.  Give the lower-level
employees immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony.  It's
done all the time.
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