Now the Republican White House does not like Republican passed laws:
An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.
Senior officials have responded by drafting legislation that would grant U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment.
In light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that the international Conventions apply to the treatment of detainees in the terrorism fight, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has spoken privately with Republican lawmakers about the need for such “protections,” according to someone who heard his remarks last week.
Gonzales told the lawmakers that a shield is needed for actions taken by U.S. personnel under a 2002 presidential order, which the Supreme Court declared illegal, and under Justice Department legal opinions that have been withdrawn under fire, the source said. A spokeswoman for Gonzales, Tasia Scolinos, declined to comment on Gonzales’s remarks.
So Bush issues an order that the Supreme Court declares illegal and now Gonzales wants a “shield” for people who followed this order. Ok fine – shield them, but the person who issued that order should have to pay the price under law for it, and that person is George Bush.
This is the continued toying with the law of this country by Bush and his cronies. It is the imperial presidency that he has tried to create and it is by far the greatest threat to our nation.
What is also interesting is how some of the top attorneys for the different branches of the military sees the actions soldiers have done under this order:
At a July 13 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Air Force’s top military lawyer, Maj. Gen. Jack L. Rives, affirmed that “some of the techniques that have been authorized and used in the past have violated Common Article 3” of the Geneva Conventions. The top military lawyers for the Army, Navy and Marine Corps, who were seated next to Rives, said they agreed.
But it doesn’t matter what these lawyers, Congress, the Supreme Court or anyone else says. If Bush, Rumsfeld and Gonzales says its ok then that is the new law. This is the perfect example of how Bush has attacked this nation and his administration is public enemy number one against the good of the country.