Britain:Attorney general warns US on torture bill

[cal04]

The attorney general warned the US at the weekend that its bill to try to limit its obligations under the Geneva convention while interrogating and trying detainees risked international condemnation.

Lord Goldsmith waded into the row after a Senate committee rejected the bill and backed alternative legislation proposed by Republican senator John McCain and supported by George Bush's former secretary of state, Colin Powell.

The attorney general's comments, in a lecture to lawyers in Chicago, signal an attempt by Britain to bring the US back in line with international law. The bill follows a US supreme court ruling that the Geneva convention's prohibitions on torture apply to al-Qaida members, which the Bush administration had denied.

Lord Goldsmith said he had thought hard about whether to interfere in a "live, and sensitive, domestic political debate". But the issue was not purely domestic. "This is an international standard of very considerable importance and its content must be the same for all nations."

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,1874783,00.html

[Supersedeas]

1. the worlds, and now even Britain, is watching--Pubbies still rolling over

[katsy]

2. and the malanthrope in the white house cares?

[indepat]

5. At some point, many are likely to get the idea he likes it

[Gman]

3. As we continue our long journey to

being a rogue nation.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. I do believe that we have already arrived.

with the willing help of most of the GOP and a surprising number of Dems, much to my chagrin.

[Marie26]

6. Good luck with that

The US has entered some sort of legal funhouse where the laws are stretched & distorted beyond all recognition. We can retroactively legalize torture now, and retroactively allow searches w/o a warrant, twist Afganistan war resolutions to authorize domestic spying, and pass laws to unilaterally dismiss a treaty we have signed. There's nice little islands of legal limbo now where no law applies at all, like Gitmo & the secret CIA prisons - into which people can be disappeared & tortured w/o any legal authority at all. We're down the rabbit hole now, and there's no coming back.

[gratuitous]

7. This is indeed of considerable importance

It's too bad the vast majority of our Republican elected representatives view it as no more than a political football to be played with. I'm so old, I remember a time when torture was something other countries did and tried to excuse through legal chicanery when they were caught. Now the United States is reduced to quibbling over questions of human dignity by an administration whose executive cynically claims to be a follower of Jesus, but can't quite discern what torture might look like.

Shame on you, George W. Bush. And shame on your Republican cronies who see loyalty to party and politics as more important than our nation's ideals, dignity and standing in the world.

[Vidar]

8. Bravo Lord Goldsmith! Death to the Poodle!

[goforit]

9. GOOD !!! Time for aggressive scolding!!