I posted this diary originally yesterday. Today, Leon Panetta went out and ran his big fat mouth yet again. And in the process overturned 60 years of international jurispurudence:
One of the most widely understood dictates from the Nuremburg Trials is that I was only obeying orders is not a defense from war crimes.
Indeed, the Convention Against Torture, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1988 and ratified into law by Congress has expressly made that dictum the Law of the Land:
Article 1
- For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person . . .
Article 2
- Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
- No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
- An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.
Now, however, CIA Director nominee Leon Panetta wants to overturn the Rule of Law by letting CIA agents or contractors who tortured slip off the hook:
CIA interrogators who used waterboarding or other harsh techniques against prisoners on the authority of the White House should not be prosecuted . . . those individuals should not be prosecuted or investigated if they acted pursuant to the law as presented by the attorney general.
Last year, Panetta expressed somewhat different views:
Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still be true to our values. But that is a false compromise. We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don't. There is no middle ground.
Deeply disappointing. I will, however, give him one more chance, if he states publicly the persons who ORDERED torture: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, SHOULD stand trial.