Nazifying the Geneva Conventions

Raw Story's a gold mine today.

The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments.

The amendments would narrow the reach of the War Crimes Act, which now states in general terms that Americans can be prosecuted in federal criminal courts for violations of "Common Article 3" of the Geneva Conventions, which the United States ratified in 1949.

The risk of possible prosecution of officials, CIA officers and former service personnel over alleged rough treatment of prisoners arises because the Bush administration, from January 2002 until June, maintained that the Geneva Conventions' protections did not apply to prisoners captured in Afghanistan.

As a result, the government authorized interrogations using methods that U.S. military lawyers have testified were in violation of Common Article 3; it also created a system of military courts not specifically authorized by Congress, which denied defendants many routine due process rights.

But Corn, the Army's former legal expert, said that Common Article 3 was, according to its written history, "left deliberately vague because efforts to define it would invariably lead to wrongdoers identifying 'exceptions,' and because the meaning was plain -- treat people like humans and not animals or objects." Eugene R. Fidell, president of the nonprofit National Institute of Military Justice, said that laws governing military conduct are filled with broadly described prohibitions that are nonetheless enforceable, including "dereliction of duty," "maltreatment" and "conduct unbecoming an officer."

Retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, the Navy's top uniformed lawyer from 1997 to 2000 and now dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center, said his view is "don't trust the motives of any lawyer who changes a statutory provision that is short, clear, and to the point and replaces it with something that is much longer, more complicated, and includes exceptions within exceptions."

I never thought I'd see the day when the President of the United States would commit war crimes, permit, even encourage others to commit war crimes, get his Attorney General to say war crimes are OK, try to convince the public that war crimes are on their behalf and in their best interests, all the while knowing they're committing illegal acts, and only when all of a sudden there may be a shift of power in Congress, try to make war crimes legal so they all can't be prosecuted.

They'll all be divin' for the exits come November. Jail for the lot of 'em, I say.

Then there's that pesky Nuremburg War Crimes Trials decision about illegally invading another country. We'll get to that later, I hope.

Sorry about the capital 'P' on 'President'. I wasn't talking about Bush, just being theoretical, hoping for the day when we have a real elected President again.

Update:

Billmon says:

This is like letting John Gotti rewrite the RICO statute.

Almost exactly like that.