rfk hearts mlk...,
2008-04-01 10:37:42
| Main |
JP Morgan fleeces public schools out of $12 billion in PA alone...,
2008-04-04 10:04:18
rules schmules:
Without this declassified memo declaring the vigilante prerogative of the executive branch to wantonly torture suspects we could never have gotten Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's confessions to masterminding the Fleischmann and Pons cold fusion hypothesis, Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction, and the Boston Mooninite Scare.
Thomas J. Romig, who was then the Army's judge advocate general, said yesterday after reading the memo that it appears to argue there are no rules in a time of war, a concept Romig found "downright offensive."
I suppose, skimming through it, that I have to agree. They simply refuse to accept that any law they deign to mention could apply to them. It rather puts this whole "war on terror" concept in a muddier pool. If there were no rules in a time of war then terrorism was legally impossible. On the other hand if terrorism was a violation of the laws of war, and there were no laws of war, a pacifist position that war is then terrorism has its own appeal.
In hindsight, though, maybe it's a little ironic that the administration would be the only Americans to actually argue that there indeed was a "sense in which the events of September 11 can be held to constitute [a justifiable] reprisal, either legally or morally".
Maybe this helps clarify why the Bush administration's Attorney General is making the serious allegation that - through witting negligence or culpable inefficiency - the Bush administration allowed Al Qaeda to attack us on 9/11. If the attacks themselves weren't illegal they won't need to rely soley on a strong ineptitude defense.
