What could it be? Miner? Fireman? Astronaut?
No. Al-Qaeda number 2. We have apparently just killed the 3,000th Al-Qaeda number 2. We are getting pretty good at this. Unfortunately, a spanking new number 2 is always available.
360Cities has posted a collection of 360-degree panoramas of Hiroshima following the atomic bombing of the City. They show amazing detail and are powerful argument against future use of these horrible weapons against civilian non-combatants. Click the full screen button for the full view closeup. (via Boing Boing)
A judge is allowing an Army veteran who says he was imprisoned unjustly and tortured by the U.S. military in Iraq to sue former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld personally for damages.
I am certain that the Obama administration does not view this action as “hostilities” triggering the War Power Act, but we are now bombing in Somalia.
We’re at 15 percent revenue, and historically it’s been closer to 20 percent. We’ve never had a war without a tax, and now we’ve got two. Absolute bullshit.
– Former US GOP Senator and Obama bi-partisan fiscal reform commission co-chariman Alan Simpson.
The Obama Justice Department will investigate the deaths of two prisoners under the control of the CIA for possible criminal violations. Good step.
But what the DOJ gives with one hand, they more than take away with the other. The cases of approximately 100 other detainees are now closed.
This is unfortunate. The only way to get past the past torture committed by the United States is a full and honest accounting of such practices so as to reduce the chances of the abuses occurring again. Whether it is via a criminal investigation or an independent review not resulting in criminal charges, such an accounting is critical.
He often is, but I am referring specifically to this.
I would add two additional points:
The first is that the price tag is still rising, under a second president.
The second is that the price tag quoted does not include the value of self-imposed reduced civil liberties within the United States and, further, it does not reduce the net value reduction in the respect for the United States and its long-term tradition prohibiting and punishing torture.
President Obama, speaking at the LGBT Gala in New York last week, again refused to endorse same-sex marriage. Such refusal came as New York, lead by Andrew M. Cuomo, was legalizing same sex marriage in the state. Why Obama cannot bring himself to openly support a freedom that the majority of citizens now supports is beyond confusing. His failure to support same-sex marriage is a betrayal of his promises of equal rights for all.
This is yet another in a long string of disappointments for those of us who voted for him, expecting that he would alter the policies of the Bush administration. We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Guantanamo remains open. The DOJ has refused to investigate credible claims that we tortured prisoners in the so-called war on terror using the cover of wrong-headed opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel. Our civil liberties continue to be eroded by the extension of the Patriot Act and new spying tools claimed by the FBI. We are fighting a third war in Libya, without Congressional approval, despite Administration claims that we are not involved in hostilities. The big banks have been bailed out but not homeowners who owe billions to the banks as a result of abusive loan tactics. No officials of the banks have been convicted for wrongdoing.
Change? Hope? Nope. Not from Obama.
President Obama, despite campaign pledges to return to fully lawful legal interpretations, over-ruled the top lawyer in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department and concluded that the US military attacks on Libya do not trigger the need for Congressional approval under the War Powers Resolution.
Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20.
***
Presidents have the legal authority to override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel and to act in a manner that is contrary to its advice, but it is extraordinarily rare for that to happen. Under normal circumstances, the office’s interpretation of the law is legally binding on the executive branch.
The result: we are now engaged in three wars in three foreign countries. The United States, by attacking Muslims around the world, is increasing the likelihood that radical elements in these countries will be more successful in recruiting future terrorists. And his action shows a disrespect for the rule of law and separation of powers that is disappointing coming from someone claiming to be a constitutional lawyer.
Update: Glenn Greenwald notes the parallels to George W. Bush:
Bush decided to reject the legal conclusions of his top lawyers and ordered the NSA eavesdropping program to continue anyway, even though he had been told it was illegal (like Obama now, Bush pointed to the fact that his own White House counsel (Gonzales), along with Dick Cheney’s top lawyer, David Addington, agreed the NSA program was legal). In response, Ashcroft, Comey, Goldsmith, and FBI Director Robert Mueller all threatened to resign en masse if Bush continued with this illegal spying, and Bush — wanting to avoid that kind of scandal in an election year — agreed to “re-fashion” the program into something those DOJ lawyers could approve (the “re-fashioned” program was the still-illegal NSA program revealed in 2005 by The New York Times; to date, we still do not know what Bush was doing before that that was so illegal as to prompt resignation threats from these right-wing lawyers).
That George Bush would knowingly order an eavesdropping program to continue which his own top lawyers were telling him was illegal was, of course, a major controversy, at least in many progressive circles. Now we have Barack Obama not merely eavesdropping in a way that his own top lawyers are telling him is illegal, but waging war in that manner (though, notably, there is no indication that these Obama lawyers have the situational integrity those Bush lawyers had [and which Archibald Cox, Eliot Richardson and William Ruckelshaus had before them] by threatening to resign if the lawlessness continues).
Cats in Tanks from Whitehouse Post on Vimeo.
(via BoingBoing)
Mistreatment of enemy prisoners endangers our own troops, who might someday be held captive. While some enemies, and al-Qaeda surely, will never be bound by the principle of reciprocity, we should have concern for those Americans captured by more conventional enemies, if not in this war then in the next.
Though it took a decade to find bin Laden, there is one consolation for his long evasion of justice: He lived long enough to witness what some are calling the Arab Spring, the complete repudiation of his violent ideology.
As we debate how the United States can best influence the course of the Arab Spring, can’t we all agree that the most obvious thing we can do is stand as an example of a nation that holds an individual’s human rights as superior to the will of the majority or the wishes of government? Individuals might forfeit their life as punishment for breaking laws, but even then, as recognized in our Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, they are still entitled to respect for their basic human dignity, even if they have denied that respect to others.
All of these arguments have the force of right, but they are beside the most important point. Ultimately, this is more than a utilitarian debate. This is a moral debate. It is about who we are.
– Senator John McCain, in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post yesterday.
Or so reports The Galactic Empire Times.
The short answer is yes.
For purposes of international law, Article 51 of the United Nations Charter clearly provides states with a right of self-defense:
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
bin Laden claimed credit for the attack on 9/11, the largest loss of life on American soil caused by foreign attack. His killing was a legitimate response to the attack. As Lindsey Graham said this week:
“From a Navy SEAL perspective, you had to believe that this guy [Osama bin Laden] was a walking IED,” an improvised explosive device, said Graham.
“I think the SEALS had to believe that the moment they encountered [bin Laden] that they were well within their right. Shooting him as soon as possible probably protected everyone, including the SEALS, women and children,” he said. “The moment they saw bin Laden they had to consider him a threat. “
As for US law, there are several bases for the action’s legality. First, Section 2(a) of Public Law 107-40, Authorization for Use of Military Force, authorizes the President to “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.” bin Laden, having admitted responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, certainly qualifies as a person who planned or authorized the attack. And he repeatedly stated he would plan future attacks.
Second, bin Laden was essentially a war general. As such, he was subject to military targeting.
Ilya Somin, a professor at George Mason University’s School of Law, echoed Greenberg’s argument that “targeting individual enemy combatants in war is perfectly legal and moral”.
Somin points at US targeting of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of the Japanese fleet during World War II, and the British and the Czechs’ killing of German SS General Reinhard Heydrick in 1942, as precedents.
“Surely international law does not give terrorist leaders greater protection than that enjoyed by uniformed soldiers such as Admiral Yamamoto.”
“And if it is legal to individually target the commander of a uniformed military force, it is surely equally legal to target the leader of a terrorist organisation, including Osama bin Laden,” he told Al Jazeera.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, torture is never legal under either US domestic and treaty law. When an alleged combatant is captured it is not lawful to subject the prisoner to torture. There are no exceptions.
The United States has always prohibited the use of torture in our Constitution, laws executive statements and judicial decisions. We have ratified three treaties that all outlaw torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. When the United States ratifies a treaty, it becomes part of the Supreme Law of the Land under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, says, “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture.”
Whether someone is a POW or not, he must always be treated humanely; there are no gaps in the Geneva Conventions. He must be protected against torture, mutilation, cruel treatment, and outrages upon personal dignity, particularly humiliating and degrading treatment under, Common Article 3.
The Common Article III of Geneva Convention, of which the US is a signatory, provides, in part, as follows with respect to prisoners of war defined as individuals who have “fallen under the power of the enemy”:
Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.
Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.
Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited.
***
No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.
In other words, torture of a prisoner already under a government’s total control is never a legal form of self-defense.
So far I know of no information that was obtained, that would have been useful, by ‘advanced interrogation.’ In fact, according to published reports … some of the key people who knew about this courrier denied it.
Where there is published information in the various newspapers and media that the information about this courier was intercepted conversation between two individuals — that’s as far as I know. I stand on the side of the United States and by the Geneva conventions, of which we are signatories, which we were in violation of by waterboarding.
– US Senator John McCain
I tend to agree with Jon Stewart on this:
Maybe we should always show pictures. Bin Laden, pictures of our wounded service people, pictures of maimed innocent civilians. We can only make decisions about war if we see what war actually is — and not as a video game where bodies quickly disappear leaving behind a shiny gold coin.