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globetrotter

it didn’t take long, with the news breaking (as far as i know) in the washington post on sunday, it was apparently all over the sunday talk shows….

Senator Says Lifetime Terror Detentions ‘Bad Idea’ [reuters, january 2, 2005]

“It’s a bad idea. So we ought to get over it and we ought to have a very careful, constitutional look at this,” Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, cited earlier U.S. Supreme Court decisions. “There must be some modicum, some semblance of due process … if you’re going to detain people, whether it’s for life or whether it’s for years,” Levin said, also on Fox.

“some semblance of due process”? that’s all we’re asking from america these days?

the pentagon doesn’t like being in the prison business – and the cia… well, that’s a different story, and a whole different level.

but, both the pentagon and the cia want to get out of the business, and they’ve apparently asked the administration to get them off the hook and come up with a final answer for people we’ve picked up around the globe, but don’t feel going through any unseemly judicial processes.

Long-Term Plan Sought For Terror Suspects [washington post, jan 2, 2005 – registration]

The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. The outcome of the review, which also involves the State Department, would also affect those expected to be captured in the course of future counterterrorism operations.

now, of course, the real question is what plan the administration cooks up.

i suppose it’s entirely possible that the bush administration will step up to the america they are trying so hard to defend and show us that it’s still a vibrant, functional, constitutionally-grounded country.

plurality in salvation

once upon a time our potential new attorney general wrote a memo to the president on the subject of torture.

hearings to confirm mr. gonzales are scheduled to begin in several days.

in the meantime, daniel levin, in his capacity as acting assistant attorney general has put his name to another memo [mirrored here], which superceeds the august 2002 memo, and in which we find the following:

Memorandum for James B. Comey, Deputy Attorney General, December 30, 2004

Torture is abhorrent both to american law and values and to international norms. This universal repudiation of torture is reflected in our criminal law, for example 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A; international agreements, exemplified by the United Nations Convention Against Torture (the “CAT”); customery international law, centuries of Anglo-American law; and the longstanding policy of the United States, repeatedly and recently affirmed by the President.

….

Two final points on the issue of specific intent: First, specific intent must be distinguished from motive. There is no exception under the statute permitting torture to be used for a “good reason.” Thus, a defendant’s motive (to protect national security, for example) is not relevant to the question whether he has acted with the requisite specific intent under the statute.

[emphasis is mine]. this is huge. normally you have to wait for the ponderous checks-and-balances effect to reverse administrative thinking at this sort of level – the courts have to step in. they’re starting to, to be sure, but to have an executive department flip-flop like this (to borrow a campaign phrase), particularly under the presumed tight control of the bush white house, seems to be to be a pretty extraordinary event.

i can only imagine this new document has been in the works for some time (the august 2002 memo having been “withdrawn” in june 2004), and having been through what appears to be a fairly extensive review process, including the criminal division of the doj. however long this has been in the works, it is a general repudiation of the “torture greenlight” provided by the ashcroft department of justice, and its release prior to the confirmation hearings for alberto gonzales as ashcroft’s replacement makes this something to note.

perfectionist

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