Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Le fucking etat, c'est moi.


Oh, man ... it must be nice to be king:

Bush seeks retroactive immunity for violating War Crimes Act

Thirty-two years ago, President Gerald Ford created a political firestorm by pardoning former President Richard Nixon of all crimes he may have committed in Watergate -- and lost his election as a result. Now, President Bush, to avoid a similar public outcry, is quietly trying to pardon himself of any crimes connected with the torture and mistreatment of U.S. detainees.

The ''pardon'' is buried in Bush's proposed legislation to create a new kind of military tribunal for cases involving top al-Qaida operatives. The ''pardon'' provision has nothing to do with the tribunals. Instead, it guts the War Crimes Act of 1996, a federal law that makes it a crime, in some cases punishable by death, to mistreat detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions and makes the new, weaker terms of the War Crimes Act retroactive to 9/11.

Press accounts of the provision have described it as providing immunity for CIA interrogators. But its terms cover the president and other top officials because the act applies to any U.S. national.

But remember -- they've never broken the law. Just ask them.

2 comments:

Glyn (Zaphod) Evans said...

Jesus, I didn't know that bit. Sneaky conniving twats...

Scotian said...

Ti-Guy is exactly correct. It is through such mechanisms and a mentality looking to create and exploit them that allows such people as were involved in Watergate and Iran-Contra to return to government service and power a decade or so later. Once enough time has passed so long as there is no legal impediment to hang them with from those days too many people will have forgotten just how appalling what they had done truly was. Unfortunately one element of human nature is that time blurs things, especially things that did not carry personal significance to that person. So someone that takes politics seriously will remember/feel it but someone that is not and had no other direct connection to it will likely not even if they remember any involvement at all.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I think I may expand on this at Saundrie in the next few days. This Administration is truly the criminal organization that the GOP kept trying to prove and always failing with the Clinton Administration, an Administration that faced scrutiny and oversight far in excess than anything Bushco has yet to ever face.