Eagleionline

Following the healthy discussion BCLS has had regarding the fact that Attorney General Mukasey’s is slated to be our commencement speaker, I find it timely to note that the so-called 2003 “torture memo”—granting the executive branch and Pentagon broad leeway in its interrogation methods of terror suspects—was declassified and released to the public yesterday. The document, available here and here and here and here (four separate parts), according to the Guardian, “outlines legal justification for military interrogators to use harsh tactics against al-Qaida and Taliban detainees overseas so long as they did not specifically intend to torture their captives. It argues that poking, slapping or shoving would not give rise to criminal liability, and also appears to defend the use of mind-altering drugs that do not produce “an extreme effect”.” [1] Part of memo even explicitly states, ““Even if an interrogation method arguably were to violate a criminal statute, the Justice Department could not bring a prosecution because the statute would be unconstitutional as applied in this context.” Yale Law School professor Eugene R. Fidell told the New York Times ““This is a monument to executive supremacy and the imperial presidency. It’s also a road map for the Pentagon for fending off any prosecutions.” [2]

In additional news, FOX News—yes, you read correctly, FOX—blogger Father Jonathan wrote a piece a few weeks ago noting Bush’s veto of a bill that would’ve banned waterboarding and other techniques, stating that, “We should never trust anyone’s judgment that evil can sometimes be good. Torture, like rape and other intrinsic evils, is always wrong. The international community, following a long tradition of ethical reasoning, and having witnessed the tragic consequences of Machiavellian alternatives, has defined torture and condemned it universally.” Father Jonathan also describes waterboarding and other such enhanced interrogation techniques as “un-American” and “unethical.” [3]

For additional law review articles on waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques please click the following links:

Torture, Violence, and the Global War on Terror

Playing by Our Own Rules

A World Without Torture

[1] Guardian, 2 April 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/02/usa1

[2] Mazzetti, Mark. 2 April 2008, “’03 US Memo Approved Harsh Interrogations,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/washington/02terror.html?em&ex=1207281600&en=45e1d63b7e0901b9&ei=5087%0A

[3] Father Drinian, “Why President Bush Should Have Vetoed Waterboarding,” 10 March 2008, FOX, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336589,00.html