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Did you happen do see the floor speeches Dodd and Whitehouse gave today on FISA?

The key aspect of that was that the Counsel for POW from Desert Storm who sued the Iraq government were denied standing by an Executive Decree.

That’s right, George W. Bush opposed a Defense Authorization Act with the Laughtenberg Amendment in it that would have given these soldier that right to sue those who tortured American POW.

One could understand why Bush’s boss CHeney did this, because he authorized torture and the Halliburton profiteer would then be liable for that fact.

We cannot establish precedent, even when our own troops would be the ones getting the Rule of Law in their favor.

Orwell is rolling over in his grave…

the Republicans are so convoluted in their arguments, the Counsel for the POWs broadsided the Executive repeatedly.

This key program preceded the above:
Counsel for POWs and Family Members in Acree v. Iraq
U.S. POWs from the 1991 Gulf War hold a news conference to disuss President Bush’s veto of the Defense Authorization Act and its impact on their court judgement against Iraq for torturing during the war.
1/25/2008: WASHINGTON, DC: 1 hr. 45 min.

Former 1975-76 Church Committee Counsel Frederick Schwartz is on, Human Rights First’s Elisa Massimino, Georetown’s Marty Lederman(former OLC) as host, David Rivkin the James Baker flak of Baker & Hostetler, Dan Marcus, Amer.Univ. Washington College of Law.

Audience questions in the final minutes.

Major CIA pushback against OVP, DoJ, Executive branch. Gang of four dissent noted as well.

Very critical of the fact almost no transparency or Constitutional checks exist.
Schwartz- “The Congressional investigation is much more important than a Criminal investigation.”
Says more facts will get out there.

Reporter notes the tape destruction in 2005 to cover the fact they used waterboarding past the time there was a supposed deadline on its use in 2002. They admit its use up to 2002 and supposedly corrected its use, then when caught doing otherwise simply destroyed evidence.

Mukasey with egg on face over it.

During the program Rivkin notes the security card as the continued justification, then even notes it was such a new challenge. The Chevron expression, the tendency to exchange a list of designation from easy to worst, one to ten, etc. Complete legalese.

He admits the opinion eventually rested upon was the paper of a first year student made into policy.

Where’s the rule of law? Our country was fighting a revolution and George Washington, in new territory, refused torture of Hessian soldiers and impressments captured by our Army. One would assume this included their families, Hessians were known to have wives travel and see their needs in cooking and other items, and even had a comfort army of girlfriends for others. That item’s an assumption on the historical record of their social structure, not an authenticated American historical item. One would imagine such was similar here, and a key part of how Gen.Washington was able to assimilate those troops so effectively or carry forward legitmate prisoner exchanges and garner additional international support from allies such as France.

The very founding of America enshrined the rights of those we fought in war. This helped us gain advantage. The notion of State sponsorship or uniformed service being separate from these rights designations would seem to be a moot point since third party soldiers comprised a majority of the opponents we faced.

They were recognized prisoners of war also.

Marcus(9/11 counsel as well) continues and mentions the fact Contempt of Congress could be another item to weight in the Hearings process, as a final note.

Moreover, Congress will still be controlled by the same interest groups

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President Hillary By Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19150.htm