Monday links I: Boston Massacre and the Rule of Law

Publis at OW muses about the John Adams series and its depiction of the Boston Massacre:

Mankind hasn’t really changed that much since we've emerged from the forest. Passions have consumed us for as long as there have been men. We saw it in the French Revolution. We saw it in the Russian Revolution. We saw it in Boston in 1770 when British officials were swept up and tortured with burning tar (a scene the HBO series chillingly portrays). And we saw it in 2002 when America rushed mob-like into war in a matter of weeks, based entirely on falsehoods and misguided assumptions.

He uses it as a platform to talk about judicial review, the importance of judiciary and the rule of law. I'll just link this to remind me that the scene can be a good one to show in a future class.

Haynes -- out!

As Hilzoy says, the witch is dead!! For one rare moment, one of Bush's lawless lackeys finally has to leave government service. The story that got him out was The Nation's account of how he fixed the show trial process for Gitmo detainees. But his evil goes far deeper:

Haynes led the working group that wrote one of the most appalling torture memos (pdf). This memo argues that the President "enjoys complete discretion in the exercise of his Commander-in-Chief authority", and that "In light of the President's complete authority over the conduct of war, without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the President's ultimate authority in these areas." Also: "Any attempt by Congress to regulate the interrogation of unlawful combatants would violate the Constitution's sole vesting of the Commander-in-Chief authority in the President." (p. 23) Or, in other words: when we're at war, the President does not have to obey the law.

And Hilzoy ends with a delightful anecdote about how this creep argued for bombing bird nests on the grounds that it would 1) make the fewer remaining ones more special, and 2) reduce human intrustion into their habitat, which would have become a bombing range. Classy. Hilzoy again:

May William Haynes enjoy a pleasant retirement as far away from the law as it is possible to be. He has already done more than enough damage to it for several lifetimes.

Amen!

more on black site report

Hilzoy has some good commentary on the recent reoprt on black sites. Especially interesting is his comment on why we chose Poland and Romania -- their legal systems are less developed, more easily manipulated. And even at this, the leaders of those countries who cut deals with us on black sites most likely acted illegally. But we would prefer them breaking their laws to us breaking ours.

And so we come to the ironic conclusion that our "democracy-promoting" actions have weakened the rule of law in Europe as well as the middle east.