JAG: it reaches Douglas Feith

[riverwalker]

http://www.warblogging.com/
Salon.com is reporting that a report compiled by the Committee on International Law of the New York City Bar Association has found that the American military's treatment of detainees and prisoners of war in Afghanistan, Cuba and Iraq violates international law — and the compilers of the report say that the techniques employed by interrogators at prisons such as Abu Ghraib were "sanctioned by Pentagon political appointees."
Joe Conason of Salon reports that Scott Horton, a partner at Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler and chair of the Committee on International Law was told by "senior" members of the Judge Advocate General Corps that high ranking political appointees were behind the abuse. Says Conason:
Indeed, Horton says that the JAG officers specifically warned him that Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith,one of the most powerful political appointees in the Pentagon, had significantly weakened the military's rules and regulations governing prisoners of war. The officers told Horton that Feith and the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes II, were creating "an atmosphere of legal ambiguity" that would allow mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Fianlly fingers point where it should

by the way, no reason not to doubt this, this means this reaches Rummy as well... Feith did not do this alone... and it will go to... Bush

[Soup Bean]

2. I agree.

I think this is finally the end of the Bush Era. Normal people won't stand for this, no matter how uninformed they are. This is the end of it.

I say Thank God we're still America. You can fool all of us some of the time, but not all of the time. Restore America in 04.

[DianeG5385]

12. Don't underestimate the power of the uninformed

and the deliberately ignorant. The GOP has "religious" adherents who will vote for them no matter the horrors they commit. I pity them. GOTV has never ever been more vital.

[napi21]

4. HOLY S**T I can't believe it!

I know all the Pugs are going to say this is BS bacause it's a report from Salon, but I believe it!

Can't wait to hear Limpballs etc.

[Arianrhod]

29. From Day 1, this administration has sought

to weaken all of the restraining laws that would keep them walking a moral line. They have unconstitutionally pulled out of treaties, rejected the World Court, put in charge of domestic civil liberties a religious nutcase who doesn't believe in the Constitution, thumbed their nose at the United Nations, threatened any nation that dared to speak out against them, rattled sabers everywhere.

Why should we be surprised that atrocities are taking place? That was the plan, right from the start.

[anarchy1999]

3. YES! Start with PNAC'ers, then get the rest of the Iran-Contra Criminals.

They have been at this way too long. School of Americas.......

[Stephanie]

19. The neo-cons are going to jail!

One at a time, if necesary. I am patient.

[anarchy1999]

26. You are far more patient than I am.

n/t

I WANT IT NOW! And I want all of them, not one at a time. I know it is a lot to ask and to hope for but I believe we have to make it happen.

[Junkdrawer]

5. My sense today was that a good piece of the Senate is....

going to follow EXACTLY this trail up to Rummy. I said it a few days into this: I don't see Rummy surviving this.

[Warpy]

6. Feith is pond scum

I'd almost rather get rid of him than Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld is nuts and will self destruct on his own, and we can always hope he'll take Wolfowitz and Perle with him.

Feith is more dangerous only because he's been kept out of the public eye, by and large. I'd dearly love to see him go.

[Stephanie]

20. No one has mentioned CHENEY

I don't believe anything happens in this admin without the involvement of Cheney. I can't believe the buck stops at Rumsfeld.

[Tinoire]

7. They're fucking toast.

There is NO way people who don't understand the rapid power of digital cameras on the battlefield are going to be able to put this genie back into the bottle.

Jeez, I wish I had a link to the photo of George Bush pere inthe supermarket (near re-election time, trying to get in touch with the people) not having a fucking clue what a bar-code reader was.

The genie is out. Those neo-cons are toast!

[Stephanie]

21. The only thing they're sorry about is that they got caught

The audacity of Rummy today to bemoan the new era of digital cameras. Yeah, it's only a problem RUMMY when you are committing WAR CRIMES. He's insufferable. I want him in STOCKS.

[Miss Authoritiva]

8. Considering how little faith I have left in humanity today,

this is reassuring. Some people not only were paying attention but were actually doing something.

My fellow Americans endlessly baffle me: We all knew about the bizarre "we don't need no stinkin' Geneva Convention" attitude of the Bush Administration. We all knew about the cleverly constructed legal no man's land of Gitmo. But we couldn't look away from the latest episode of "Survivor" or "American Idol" long enough to process the thought that THIS ISN'T RIGHT. At least, not until some photos of naked men appeared. Then our insatiable voyeurism and barely suppressed sadism redirected our attention.

Strange, strange country.

[UTUSN]

9. aGAIN? *EVERYTHING* Reaches FEITH/CHEENEE/RUMS,etc.

Could we VOTE now?

[napi21]

10. NO! Need time for the rest of the country to catch up!

We may know this stuff now, but the rest of the country is still watching "the end of Friends".

We need some time to get this info in the national media. If it involves sex and nudity......oops! Didn't the FCC say they can't show that stuff???

Darn, will we have to depend on cable news for this!

[AlCzervik]

11. It seems like the journalists

of the world have begun to unite, i mean real Journalists. Smirk and company are getting nailed from every angle.

[teryang]

13. Paydirt!

Oops, there it is!

Great post!

<Douglas Feith, President Bush's Undersecretary of Defense for Policy — and number three man at the Pentagon — reporetdly summed up Protocol One of the Geneva Conventions of 1977 as "law in the service of terrorism".>

<Horton says "The Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs the conduct of officers and soldiers, does not apply to civilian contractors. They were free to do whatever they wanted to do, with impunity, including homicide.">

[Unknown Known]

14. Here's the map to the secret treasure - send out the Mounties!!

[anarchy1999]

15. We need the link for this map.

N/T Was it in The Nation? No, it is MotherJones. It cost me lots to include in a press release!

[Unknown Known]

16. It was MoJo

http://www.mojones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_400.html

[Dudley_DUright]

24. Reporting as ordered Sir

[Kinkistyle]

17. God I wish they paid attention to this like 2 AND A HALF F*CKING YEARS AGO

When all of us at DU and all compassionate, reasonable people were screaming out that: HEY SOMETHING FISHY IS GOING ON HERE WITH WHAT THEY ARE TRYING TO DO WITH GUANTANAMO AND THE PATRIOT ACT.

But of course, back then, saying something like that meant you were a TRAITOROUS AMERICA-HATER, who SUPPORTS terrorists. If we didn't give Bush and his evil cronies carte blanche powers then it meant the TERRORISTS HAVE ALREADY WON. LETS ROLL!! WHEEE..


Man, sometimes I really hate being right.

[Stephanie]

23. We set the stage

Our ideas bubbled up to the mainstream. We had to talk about this two years ago or it would not be understood today.

[milkyway]

18. This proves it was MIHOP, not LIHOP. It wasn't a few bad apples acting

against the wishes of the misadministration, and it wasn't even the misadminstration letting it happen by ignoring it. Instead, the misadminstration was active in using torture as standard policy.

We are hearing the same kinds of arguments about the torture scandals as we have been hearing about 9/11: if we had only known; it was a breakdown in communication; we're basically incompetent, not evil.

I can't see bush* making it to November--he'll resign before then.

[bpilgrim]

22. the neoCONs are in a world of shit

i think the jig is up, FINALLY!

peace

[anarchy1999]

25. Dearest BP, is the jig really up? It just seems too good to be true.

Is this cabal finally going down?

Is this really the end?

I am not as sure as you are.

Peace back at you and to everyone else.

We keep thinking this is the one. It never materializes. "They" slide out underneath each and every scandal. Is this one really going to bring them down? I have my doubts. I posted earlier, we went to dinner tonight, our waitress, 25 years old, did not know who Halliburton is. We live in Dallas for god's sake. This is an educated young woman (fashion design and merchandising) and she had no clue? WTF!?

[Unknown Known]

27. They are imploding

Bush runs out of options as chaos deepens
By Guy Dinmore
Published: May 7 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: May 7 2004 5:00

Iraq's deepening crisis has left the Bush administration with few options, and although the US has entrusted the United Nations with the task of finding a way towards political stability and elections, officials and analysts close to the White House admit that hopes of success are receding fast.


Insiders describe a lack of direction and a prevailing sense of gloom and desperation in the administration. This gloom has only been intensified by the exposure of torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners. snip

"They are flying blind," comments one former official just back from service in Baghdad. "They recognise it is a mess. There is no consistency in vision and when they do agree, there is no consistency in implementation. snip

I find even the administration's strongest supporters, including fervent advocates of the war a year ago and even some who could be labelled 'neo-conservatives', now despairing and looking for an exit," Mr Kagan, a champion of American potency, wrote in the Washington Post. "All but the most blindly devoted Bush supporters can see that Bush administration officials have no clue about what to do in Iraq tomorrow, much less a month from now," he continued, asking why the president tolerated "a dysfunctional policymaking apparatus".

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1083180336168&p=1012571727162

And Financial Times is very conservative. This does not bode well.

[teryang]

30. Robert Kagan is full of s**t!

Now he's a critic of the failed policies he promoted as a neo-con. Or is that they didn't follow his delusional potency formula to his vague specifications? This guy fancies himself a foreign policy expert? "If the fuehrer only knew!"

He and his buddy, Pipes the second, another ersatz scholar, the beneficiary of undeserved name recognition in the "intellectual community." The Carnegie endowment for Peace? Give me a break!

[PurityOfEssence]

28. Oh goody; he's one of my favorite gangster neo-cons

A signitor of the PNAC letter to Clinton, no less.

He certainly doesn't have any qualms about roughing up Muslims.