Waterboarding is torture. Always has been. The US has prosecuted foreigners and nationals for it. It's a war crime and I'm afraid that there are going to be prosecutions for it eventually regardless of what Obama says or wants. Whether he likes it or not, it's not up to him to decide. Where does he get off claiming the power to determine who gets prosecuted for possible crimes anyway? That's not rule of law, that's rule by Presidential fiat.

You're referring to instances during WWII, where there were actually prisioners of war held under the Geneva convention as opposed to enemy combatants held at black sites.

It wasn't torture; it was an enhanced interrogation technique that saved countless lives.

Now barry's and his minions (you like that word) are trying to re-write the book for political expediency so that barry can look like a good little boy in front of his new found dictator friends that he likes to bow to and pal around with.

He is sacrificing the safety of America, and just threw the CIA under the bus. I wonder if he will allow prosecution for Pelosi- after all, she was fully briefed on the interrogations and didn't utter a peep.

This will be an interesting thing to watch.

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a
happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the
other. -- Ronald Reagan

[b]Now barry's and his minions (you like that word) are trying to re-write the book for political expediency so that barry can look like a good little boy in front of his new found dictator friends that he likes to bow to and pal around with.[/b]

YES! It's not like the US hasn't been diplomatic with or strongly supported any dictatorships before now. Hell, we even helped bring a lot of them to power and later helped them stave off uprisings from their masses of very happy citizens!

Both sides of US politics have quite a storied history of supporting left and right wing dictatorships financially and militarily. If you're an enemy of my enemy, you're my friend. That worked with Stalin-though the tens of millions of his victims might disagree with the US perspective here-but there have been all kinds of failures with very negative consequences like the Shah in Iran, Pinochet in Chile, our one-time buddy Saddam in Iraq, etc. etc.

There are pictures all over the net of Condi Rice shaking hands and smiling with brutal thugs like the murdering slime dictator of Equatorial Guinea. Guess all that OIL they have might have been a factor.

Foreign policy is never as black-and-white are as dogmatic as people wish it could be. It would be simpler to bomb everyone who disagreed with you into oblivion or totally ignore what other leaders do to their people or only support "good" leaders, but that's fantasyland and not reality. There is no room for absolutes in foreign policy. The do-gooder side would say never ally yourself with some freak like Stalin, but then you lose WW II and that's no good. The anything-goes-if-helps-me crowd doesn't mind supporting any anti-commie dictatorship, but then eventually when they get overthrown and the new leaders hate the US for helping the deposed dictator, it's bad news.

Be very afraid.
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Jeffy, help me understand something. Why is it ok - even heroic to kill 2 black teenagers/pirates to save the life of 1 person - the captain of that cargo ship BUT, it is not ok to waterboard a terrorist who killed 3,000 on 9/11 and planned to kill more in LA. How would you feel if your family was in LA the day that plan came together and we didn't know about it because we were lily livered about aggressive questioning of terrorists. I mean these guys are not drafted soldiers who should be treated as POW's.

By the way, I heard Ollie North on the radio yesterday and he said they waterboarded everyone in their unit as part of their training back in the 1960's. So if waterboarding is really torture, why is it ok to torture our soldiers but not captured terrorists? Help me noodle that one out Jeff.

In an ongoing conflict like a war or, in the case of the pirates, a hostage situation, different rules apply. Once someone is captured, the situation changes to one of custody in which there are clearly defined rules most of which were formulated by the United States for the protection of our military troops and codified in national and international laws. While it is true that there are violations, particularly by terrorist organizations, it is also true that because of the violations those people can be tried for war crimes. This provides the legal framework for dealing with these people without resorting to methods that were until recently considered fundamentally un-American like indefinite detention by a government without charges, reminiscent of the Soviet gulags.

You are correct that they should not be treated as POWs. Under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners taken in a conflict, once in custody, are accorded the rights of POWs initially until they are charged in a competent tribunal at which point the protections accorded them under POW status may very well be stripped away. Mosts importantly, if one of our soldiers was captured while in uniform and became a POW, it would be against international law (under the Conventions among other treaties and agreements) for them to be tried for murder (for instance) even if they had killed someone as part of the conflict they were engaged in. Nor could they be legally detained beyond the end of the conflict. A terrorist on the other hand could be legally charged with murder and sentenced to anything, including life in prison or they could be given the death penalty.

There is no mandate that I know of that requires a trial for a combatant captured in a conflict beyond the “competent tribunal” deciding their status under the Geneva Conventions. This is where the Bush administration ran into legal trouble and lost so many legal battles when the cases came before the Supreme Court. Instead of having a competent tribunal classify the prisoners under one of the 20 or so recognized categories they invented the legally undefined “enemy combatant” category. Their losses before the Supreme Court were in cases about combatant status, and then after “enemy combatant” was decided not to be a legal classification they lost trying to set up kangaroo courts which were ruled not to be competent tribunals as defined under the laws.

It would be perfectly legal for a real court or military tribunal to classify combatants in a closed hearing using classified information not revealed to the combatant in open court as far as I know. The violation is in not classifying them at all resulting in defacto detention without charges and the Supreme Court decisions against the Bush administration's positions revolved around that specific question.

As to Ollie, he knows very well that voluntary training techniques undergone by our special forces are not comparable to legally defined mandates accorded prisoners in custody.

A reasoned one as well. I actually see your point, although I don't recall the Supreme Court ruling on prisoner status, but if that happened, then they should have immediately taken them to a civilian court and taken their chances with some liberal, policy-making judge. That would let some of the terrorist scum to get executed or alternatively to get back in the game and kill some more Americans and that would focus attention on the huge flaw we have in the system and its inability to handle this new form of enemy.

I still think waterboarding is and was ok and that it worked and no doubt saved many American lives. Obama officials releasing the details without crediting the results is foolish, political and hypocritical.

The enemy status ruling was included in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld which reversed a three judge panel which had ruled that a trial by military commission established by President Bush could serve as the necessary "competent tribunal." That panel had overturned a U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia decision which had ruled that the U.S. military had failed to convene a competent tribunal to determine that Hamdan was not a prisoner of war under the Geneva Conventions. The USSC ruled that the District Court was right about the tribunals.

That decision led to the establishment of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals which decided that 38 Guantanamo detainees were, in fact, not combatants. The CSRTs were ruled unconstitutional by a lower court in part because they still used the "enemy combatants" status and in part because they went along with the suspension of habeas corpus rights. That whole position was ruled unconstitutional by the USSC in the case of Boumediene v. Bush .

IMHO the proper status should be “unlawful combatants”. Seems like a small thing but “unlawful combatants” is a legally defined status under which certain procedures are mandated.

None of these cases has dealt with the guilt or innocence of a particular detainee which is a completely different issue. The reason the Bush administration fought so hard against legally classifying the detainees is that, once legally classified, trials become a possibility (although they are not necessarily mandated) depending on the detainees circumstances. The possibility of trials led to two problems for the administration. First, because the administration engaged in illegal torture, there is a strong possibility that tainted evidence will be disallowed and secondly, it opens the possibility of war crimes accusations against the Bush officials.

I suspect both possibilities will become fact; evidence in some cases down the road will be disallowed and war crimes charges will be brought against some Bush administration officials. Charges do not mean guilt but they would mean that there will be a definitive legal ruling on whether waterboarding as allowed by the administration is torture. Since there are at least 15 cases going back almost 100 years I don't see how that ruling can be avoided if it ever comes to a trial.

The Obama administration would desperately like to avoid the whole situation in which they are in a totally lose-lose position. This has led to Obama claiming extraordinary powers as President in declaring that there would be no prosecutions. Those claiming that Obama is somehow retaliating against the previous administration have it exactly backwards. Obama's administration is claiming extraordinary power to determine that the Justice department should not prosecute possible cases involving alleged illegal activities. Nixon could only dream of such power during Watergate. Eventually this power grab will be ruled unconstitutional as they probably know. If I were them, my strategy would be to delay, postpone and appeal every ruling until I went out of office and I bet they do exactly that. Ironically, every ruling will be attacked and demonized by the right which, it seems to me, completely misunderstands the situation.

It is what it is. We are either a country of “rule of law” or we are not.

the finer points of the "law", the Taliban are now within 60 miles of Islamabad and control of that nation's nuclear weapons. The last time I checked, the Taliban aren't our allies.
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Because Princess Pelosi says so and she loves to grandstand.
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Caution - The Surgeon General has determined that constant blogging is an addiction that can cause a sedentary life style.

It is bad enough that she is right behind the VP in the line of succession to President, but being in charge of the House filled with mostly whacky, liberal Democrats is very dangerous for the country. I hope this 2010 backlash really happens and she's put back in the minority, if not we are really in trouble.

that seems to put ole Rush Limburger and President Obama on the same side, doesn't it? Keep the faith

Even a dead fish can go with the flow

Why is it that today Treasury Secretary Timothy went out of his way to blame the Evil Empire USA for the world's economic woes at that useless IMF meeting?

Are these freaking people for real?

Don't Spread My Wealth.... Spread My Work Ethic

I think he wants the America based on freedom and capitalism to fail, and fall into socialist mess.