Nuremberg?????

Nuremberg?  Nuremberg?

Weren't the torturers the ones on trial in that one?

The Bush administration has instructed U.S. diplomats abroad to defend its decision to seek the death penalty for six Guantanamo Bay detainees accused in the Sept. 11 terror attacks by recalling the executions of Nazi war criminals after World War II.

Oh, wait, I forgot.  We don't torture anyone.  Thanks to the Maverick and Commander when we want to extract confessions from prisoners we only degrade them and treat them cruelly and inhumanly.

Despite the confidence of military prosecutors, the case has been clouded by revelations that the key suspect, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the attacks in which hijackers flew planes into buildings in New York and Washington, was subjected to interrogation tactics that critics call torture.

The cable refers specifically to this and instructs diplomats to advise foreign governments that the tribunal will not accept evidence obtained through torture and that the defendants can raise objections to any statements they argue they made under coercion. Those decisions will be up to the judge, it says.

But it notes a distinction between torture and "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" that was outlawed by legislation sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, now the leading Republican candidate for the 2008 presidential nomination and a former prisoner of war during Vietnam.

The cable informs diplomats that statements made by defendants under such conditions before the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 may be considered by the court.

No wonder we're a beacon of hope to all the world.

Comments

[actor212]

The operative phrase here is "war criminals".

Yes, Al Qaeda attacked civilians, clearly a war crime, but...Al Qaeda is NOT a state. This would be like asking the Hague to try John Gotti.

[sfmike]

If there is to be any honest repeat of the (not entirely honest) Nuremberg trials, the defendants should be Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Abrams, Rice, Powell, and the scores of others who have ordered and enabled crimes against humanity.

Thanks for the five question mark title of the post. These people are way beyond shameless. It seems we've floated off into another galaxy where black-is-white and up-is-down.

[KC45s]

From what I read in the news today (oh boy), torture isn't illegal unless the torturee has been charged with a crime. Otherwise, there's nothing in the Constitution about it because cruel and unusual punishment only applies to crimes. A real live Supreme Court justice said it, so it must be true.

I don't know what this has to do with Nuremberg. Actually, it may not have anything to do with torture, since torture isn't torture unless the torturee is charged with a crime.

Whoa. I am SO confused.

[Batocchio]

You can't make the MSM take the ironic view. And um, point out the obvious. That takes a blogger.

(Actually, Dodd might make the same, important point again about Nuremberg.)

[David]

Er, I think you meant to say "trial", not trail.

[Lance]

David,

And so I did. All fixed. Thanks.