Lawyers Decided Bans on Torture Didn't Bind Bush
[link|http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/08/politics/08ABUS.html?hp|Lawyers Decided Bans on Torture Didn't Bind Bush]
"A team of administration lawyers concluded in a March 2003 legal memorandum that President Bush was not bound by either an international treaty prohibiting torture or by a federal antitorture law because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation's security.
The memo, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also said that any executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons.
...
"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign," the lawyers wrote in the 56-page confidential memorandum, the prohibition against torture "must be construed as inapplicable to interrogation undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority."
What is next? The US is going down the slippery slope fast. Based on this rationale the President can do whatever he wants torture, murder, who knows what all in the name of national security. After all, the war on terror is never ending so the President is always functioning in his role as Commander-in-Chief.
