Bush Torture Team's Travel Travails

Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights discusses the prospects of lawsuits filed in European courts against Bush Administration officials responsible for torture policies (relevant part starts about 2:30):

Comments

[Alexandra]

I am so totally not confused, Don. I just don't agree with you, as you already guessed.;)

[Don]

Alexandra, I understand your confusion. I can point you to a short piece on Wikipedia The Constitution is not a suicide pact, and also point out the major cases and one irony.

The irony is that Thomas Jefferson, the primary father of the Bill of Rights. Jefferson nevertheless behaved unconstitutionally in the Louisiana Purchase, and very likely in the case of the Burr conspiracy.

Probably more relevant to the current situation is the behavior of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, Jackson's dissenting opinion in the Terminello case, and Posner's application to terrorism.

I doubt you will agree with much of this, but the point is that the constitution has been in some ways differently interpreted in times of war and national peril.

[Alexandra]

And how did anybody know any of this before he was tortured? Enough innocent people have been abducted and tortured (also German residents), and I seriously don't think this is something a "Rechtsstaat" should do. This is pure arbitrariness, something that fits more to a totalitarian system than to anything else. How can you defend your constitution by breaking it constantly? IMHO, that does not work at all.

[Don]

That is the least of it, Alex. Mr. Ratner seeks to put a lot of officials on trial. He seeks to make all US officials shiver whenevery they contemplate doing anything which the likes of Mr. Ratner disapproves of. Or anything which any European or American activist disapproves of.

An example is the sad tale of one 'Sheik' Khaled Mohammed, who was apparently waterboarded to obtain intelligence of upcoming 'events' scheduled by Al Qaeda. The poor man was captured in Pakistan and renditioned elsewhere (probably Egypt) for advaned preparation. The fact that Sheik Mohammed was Al Qaeda's head of operations and part of the planning for many ops (including 9/11) doesn't matter, in Mr. Ratner's POV. The Americans should have seized custody of him and read him his Miranda rights in preparation for a criminal trial.

Any upcoming terrorist operations which hehad knowledge of should have been allowed to go forward rather than touch a hair of his head!

So Mr. Ratner proposes to take vengeance on the official who made the choice to 'rendition' him. Vengeance; it's the right thing to do.....

[Alexandra]

Not abducting people from European streets to bring them to rogue countries where torture is applied to them is an impossible dilemma? Interesting.

[Don]

Yup, that's what to do with officials faced with an impossible dilemma - whip em' into jail! Preferably an European jail.

I do admire the grace with which Mr. Ratner wipes the foam from his lips, however. His palpable enthusiasm for his work is a trifle offputting....

[M. Möhling]

> relevant part starts about 2:30
youtube permits setting a start time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaiTkKEufoY#t=2m30