Legalese or How to Justify Evil

As the first anniversary of 9/11 approached, and a prized Guantánamo detainee wouldn’t talk, the Bush administration’s highest-ranking lawyers argued for extreme interrogation techniques, circumventing international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the army’s own Field Manual. The attorneys would even fly to Guantánamo to ratchet up the pressure—then blame abuses on the military. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail, and holds out the possibility of war crimes charges.
story continued:
The Green Light [Vanity Fair]

Doug Feith Loves Reminiscing About Allowing Torture

"Former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith — the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth — is prominently featured in a new Vanity Fair feature about all the lying he, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, David Addington, and Jim Haynes translated into sketchy (at best) legalese in order to torture other humans. In reference to the administration's decision to disregard the Geneva Conventions for prisoners of Guantanamo Bay, Ol' Dougy clearly has mixed feelings about it! And by mixed we mean not that at all: "'This was something I played a major role in,' he began, in a tone of evident pride." It gets... it just gets so much worse. Guy's a real hoot.

Oh it was the Golden Age, 2002 was, when international law was fucked sideways by the piercing idiocy of Douglas Feith:

Feith was animated as he relived this moment. ...It all turns on what you mean by "promoting respect" for Geneva, Feith explained. Geneva didn't apply at all to al-Qaeda fighters, because they weren't part of a state and therefore couldn't claim rights under a treaty that was binding only on states. Geneva did apply to the Taliban, but by Geneva's own terms Taliban fighters weren't entitled to P.O.W. status, because they hadn't worn uniforms or insignia. That would still leave the safety net provided by the rules reflected in Common Article 3— but detainees could not rely on this either, on the theory that its provisions applied only to "armed conflict not of an international character," which the administration interpreted to mean civil war. This was new. In reaching this conclusion, the Bush administration simply abandoned all legal and customary precedent that regards Common Article 3 as a minimal bill of rights for everyone. [...]

As he saw it, either you were a detainee to whom Geneva didn't apply or you were a detainee to whom Geneva applied but whose rights you couldn't invoke. What was the difference for the purpose of interrogation?, I asked. Feith answered with a certain satisfaction, "It turns out, none. But that's the point."

It really was an Endless Summer for Douglas Feith in those halcyon days:

"This year I was really a player," Feith said, thinking back on 2002 and relishing the memory. I asked him whether, in the end, he was at all concerned that the Geneva decision might have diminished America's moral authority. He was not. "The problem with moral authority," he said, was "people who should know better, like yourself, siding with the assholes, to put it crudely."

Ha ha, he's a war criminal."

from wonkette.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------
further reading:
Genocide Survivor decries U.S. torture tactics as "severe torture":

I stared blankly at another of Van Nath's paintings. This time a prisoner is submerged in a life-size box full of water, handcuffed to the side so he cannot escape or raise his head to breathe. His interrogators, arrayed around him, are demanding information.

I asked Van Nath whether he had heard this was once used on America's terrorist suspects. He nodded his head. "It's not right," he said.

But I pressed him: Is it torture? "Yes," he said quietly, "it is severe torture. We could try it and see how we would react if we are choking under water for just two minutes. It is very serious."

Back then, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge cadres recognized this for what it was and used it with brutal efficiency. The Cambodian genocide ultimately killed 2 million people.

story continued:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/04/07/amanpour.pol.pot/index.html