billso.com

USA: Cooking Up Excuses With the Pentagon - How to torture alleged terrorists and get away with it. By Phillip Carter: “However, no amount of caveating can save the latest Defense Department memorandum on the legality of torture (first reported by the Wall Street Journal) from being construed as what it is: a cookbook on how to conduct illegal torture and get away with it. The memo discusses ways to deprive federal courts of jurisdiction over Guantanamo Bay, lays out ways for government employees to avoid culpability under federal law, and explains why the president can unilaterally nullify the federal war-crimes statute, among other things. In case that’s not enough, it also recommends that spooks and interrogators get written orders from the president, so they can offer a Nuremburg-style ‘superior orders’ defense if prosecuted. ”