Torture Memos Utilized Flawed Legal Reasoning

If you have not looked over the torture memos, please do so.

Then, take a look at this video from Philip Zelikow, a high level State Department lawyer during the Bush administration. He authored a memorandum expressing grave concerns with the legal reasoning underlying those torture memos. While a copy of Zelikow’s memorandum is not yet available, a FOIA request has been made and it is likely to surface soon:

Posted in: Commentary, Constitutional Law, Legal Issues, Op-Ed, Others' Work, Outrages, System Abuse, The Other Side

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 1:58 am and is filed under Commentary, Constitutional Law, Legal Issues, Op-Ed, Others' Work, Outrages, System Abuse, The Other Side. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

One Response to “Torture Memos Utilized Flawed Legal Reasoning”

Dan

April 24th, 2009

So what do you think is going to come of all this? The fact that there haven’t been mass demonstrations says something to me. I mean, if we can’t get riled up and out on the streets because the long-held view that the Bush administration tortured detainees as official policy, then I don’t know what can. Oh wait, I do – ridiculous anti-tax “tea bagging” rallies, which, sexual innuendo aside, promote the most nonsensical and ill-informed views I’ve seen in a while (and I’m from the far left!)

Anyway, I have an inside suspicion that by telling the CIA and others “everything will be fine, we [meaning his administration] won’t prosecute”, Obama played this political gambit masterfully. Because SOMEthing will have to be done, heads will have to roll, and the torture memos are basically the nail in the coffin that Cheney et al. broke the law.

So I think congress will have to pick up the slack here, even if just to be on the politically pragmatic side of the debate that “we don’t torture in America”. The Dems have a chance to look strong on national security (because torture makes us less safe because it’s a massive terrorist recruiting tool) and I can’t imagine too many from the right thinking this is all in our best interests. Even the tea-baggers shouldn’t want their taxes being used to waterboard and shame-slap.

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