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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Senate torture report
 
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kustomkarkommando
Oct 22, 2012

Cocoa Ninja posted:

Indicting anyone in the state / defense departments or CIA for torture seems caught in an endless loop:

-Was it a top-down policy tacitly approved at all levels?
Then we can't blame the minions, and we'll never get anything meaningful leveled against the higher-ups. We should drop it.

-Was it done without the approval or complete knowledge of those at the top (Powell, Bush, Cheney?)
Then no one meaningful could be prosecuted. Why open old wounds and make ammo for the next political cycle? We should drop it.

I'm very pessimistic about any of this, but I support those who at least show up to these hearings and try to get the word out.

The Convention against torture specifically states that an order from a superior may not be used as a justification to carry out torture. The principle of individual criminal responsibility stands and you need to perform some serious back-flips to try to claim immunity from prosecution post-Pinochet.

* # ¿ Dec 9, 2014 22:20
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kustomkarkommando
Oct 22, 2012

emfive posted:

Well I'm imagining a future Senate hearing where a CIA operative, digitally obscured to protect his identity, sobs while recounting how much he's suffered from "touching and manipulating all those butts".

I will bet good money that someone in the CIA authored a detailed document on the finer points of butt manipulation.

* # ¿ Dec 10, 2014 01:34
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kustomkarkommando
Oct 22, 2012

euphronius posted:

It's also a moot point because the necessity defense is available in the US.

One definition:
There, to present the defense at trial, defendants must meet the burden of production on four elements: “(1) they were faced with a choice of evils and chose the lesser evil; (2) they acted to
prevent imminent harm; (3) they reasonably anticipated a direct caus
al relationship be- tween their conduct and the harm to be averted; and
(4) they had no legal alternatives to violating the law.”

So if someone is charged with torture TODAY, they can argue it was necessary and not be convicted.

So the whole "national debate" is dumb.

The necessity defence does not jive with the Convention Against Torture:

"CAT Article 2(2) posted:

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

Yoo loving knew this as well and tried to argue that since the domestic enactment of the Convention does not specifically affirm commitment to Article 2(2) a necessity defence still stands, a claim which is pretty ropey considering the general fuziness about whether or not a necessity defence can be used when the relevant statute does not explicitly provide for it.

It's a fuzzy area and by no means a slam-dunk

* # ¿ Dec 11, 2014 21:38
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Senate torture report