Tag: War Crimes

Now more than ever, the reason for Wikileaks to exist: the preservation of what remains of the rule of law and the US Constitution. From Marcy Wheeler at FDL:

SCOTUS: Govt Can Use State Secrets to Hide Crimes

SCOTUS just declined to take the Jeppesen Dataplan suit.

The high court rejected an appeal by five men who claimed that U.S. operatives-with support from Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing unit-abducted them and sent them to other countries where they were tortured. They alleged Jeppesen provided critical flight planning and logistical support to the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program. The men were seeking unspecified monetary damages from the company.

This effectively means that men like Binyam Mohamed, who the Brits have admitted was tortured after being rendered, cannot sue for redress. And the ruling is particularly egregious since a Jeppesen executive admitted that his company was flying rendition flights.

In effect, SCOTUS’ decision not to take this case leaves in place state secrets precedent that allows the government to commit grave crimes, but hide behind state secrets.

Update: The Brennan Center and a bunch of other crazy hippies who believe in rule of law wrote a letter in response to SCOTUS’ decision to DOJ reminding them that, per their purported state secrets policy, credible allegations of wrong-doing must be referred to the Inspectors General of the relevant agencies for investigation.

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This is me officially holding my breath for the Obama Administration to do what they promised on this front.

Don’t hold your breath, Marcy. I have no expectations of the Obama administrations doing anything they promised regarding the rule of law and the Constitution. Dick Cheney must be proud.

Torture is a war crime. Water boarding is torture. If you advocate, authorize or perform it on another person, you are breaking not just US law but international law. Period. The President and the DOJ are obligated by law to investigate and prosecute war crimes. Under the law if they do not, they, themselves are complicit. There are no excuses.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who was tortured while a POW in Viet Nam, wrote an editorial in the Washington Post rejecting and chastising those who were making the claim that torture, specifically water boarding, was instrumental in finding Osama bin Laden. He then appeared on the Senate floor ans spoke for 20 minutes.

Former attorney general Michael Mukasey recently claimed that “the intelligence that led to bin Laden . . . began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed , who broke like dam under the pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included water boarding. He loosed a torrent of information – including the nickname of a trusted courier of bin Laden.” That is false.

I asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and he told me the following: The trail to bin Laden did not begin with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was water boarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led to bin Laden, as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee who was held in another country, who we believe was not tortured. None of the three detainees who were water boarded provided Abu Ahmed’s real name, his whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda.

Law professor Jonathan Turley appeared on MSNBC’s The Ed Show and addressed this on his blog

Last night on The Ed Show, I discussed the amazing speech and column by Senator John McCain on torture. One of the most notable aspects of the comments was McCain stating that the claim by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey that torture led to the location of Bin Laden is simply untrue and confirmed as false by CIA Director Leon Panetta.

As did Ron Paul in the recent Republican debate, John McCain confronted his colleagues over the effort to redeem torture by claiming that it was beneficial in this case. As he correctly notes, torture is a war crime not because it lacks any benefit in terms of intelligence but because it is immoral . . . . .

To the contrary, McCain points out that the torture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed resulted in demonstrably “false and misleading information.”

Where I part with McCain is his insistence that, despite it being torture (and thus a war crime), no one should ever be punished for the crimes. It is important to stand for principle but it is even more important to bear the responsibility that comes with principle. It may not be popular or convenient, but we are obligated to investigate and prosecute torture.

Glenn Greenwald is an absolute must read on the Nuremberg Principles:

Benjamin Ferencz is a 92-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, American combat soldier during World War II, and a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, where he prosecuted numerous Nazi war criminals, including some responsible for the deaths of upward of 100,000 innocent people.  He gave a fascinating (and shockingly articulate) 13-minute interview yesterday to the CBC in Canada about the bin Laden killing, the Nuremberg principles, and the U.S. role in the world.  Without endorsing everything he said, I hope as many people as possible will listen to it.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey then lamely attempted to rebut McCain through an op-ed by former Cheney speech writer, Marc A Thiessen. It does not change the fact that Mukasey, Gonzalez, Bybee, Yoo, et al and now, Holder, have excused, covered up and defended war crimes, thus making them all eligible for cells at the Hague.

It seems that since Osama bin Laden’s demise that the torture advocates, architects and apologists have come out of hiding and are all over the MSM touting the success of waterboarding.

Top architect and advocate, Dick Cheney, emerged from his undisclosed location to appear on Fox with Chris Wallace touting that waterboarding isn’t torture. I won’t insult our readers with the sickening video of this war criminal. You can view in the article at Think Progress.

. . . former Vice President Dick Cheney stridently defended Bush era torture programs, calling harsh interrogation tactics “the most important steps we took that kept us safe for 7 years.” He also advocated reinstating waterboarding, telling Wallace that enhanced interrogation “worked, and provided absolutely vital pieces of information.”

Cheney resurrected an old GOP talking point in insisting that waterboarding was not torture, despite testimony of people like CIA Director Leon Panetta to the contrary. “It was a good program, it was a legal program, it was not torture,” Cheney maintained.

Many former Bush administration officials have falsely credited torture tactics with leading to the raid on Osama bin Laden, but Cheney went further by insisting that torture was the key policy that has kept the country safe for a decade after the September 11th attacks.

Guest blogger Lawrence Rafferty at law professor Jonathan Turley’s site wrote that despite all the rationalization by these criminals “Torture is still Torture, and it is Still Illegal.”:

This entire week the torture enthusiasts have been back on all of the news channels exclaiming their happiness that their “enhanced interrogation techniques” worked.  Of course, they are talking about waterboarding and other methods of torture. Why are Michael Mukasey, John Yoo and other members of the George W. Bush administration once again declaring that torture is good policy and that it was successful in helping to get Osama Bin Laden?

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The Bush Administration officials seem to be attempting to rewrite history by claiming their illegal torture techniques aided in the search for Bin Laden.  In former Attorney Gen. Mukasey and Prof. Yoo’s cases, they are both asserting that torture is effective and that is legal.  That’s right.  According to the Torture Twins, Mukasey and Yoo, they claim that waterboarding is legal.  Although I agree that President Obama has done the country a disservice by not prosecuting the officials who authorized and carried out the torture during the Bush administration, by no means does that inaction make waterboarding legal.  I guess if the Bush apologists keep saying it enough, they hope that Americans will believe them.  Mukasey and Yoo both sold out their souls for their jobs and their President.  I hope they can sleep at night.

Not only should the Obama administration be pursuing the prosecution of CIA officers who did the torture, they should be prosecuting those who gave the orders.

Dahlia Lithwick, a lawyer and senior editor at Slate, spoke with Cenk Uygur about returning the rule of law to thus country now that Osama bin Laden is dead. She calls for President Obama to fulfill his campaign promises to close Guantanamo, end military tribunal in lieu of Article III trials. In her article at Slate she discusses “Closing Pandora’s Box” ending the euphemistic “was on terror”:

The killing of Osama bin Laden has, for a brief instant, united an America that seemed permanently torn in two over birth certificates, the deficit, and the Donald. We can debate whether there should have been a trial, whether Americans ought to be dancing in the streets, whether it was legal to kill him, or even whether it matters whether it was legal to kill him. But we all appear to basically agree that the world is a far better place because the man responsible for one of the most vicious attacks in U.S. history is no longer in it.

So now what? Legally speaking, there are two broad lessons to derive from the Obama administration’s latest salvo in the war on terror. One is that it shows the need to continue operating outside legal norms indefinitely. The other is that it allows us to declare a symbolic victory over terrorism and return once more to the pre-9/11 regime in which the rule of law is inviolate.

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About all we can say with certainty is this: We tortured. We live in a world in which we must contend with information obtained by torture. We now need to decide whether we want to continue to live that way. Writers from ideological backgrounds as diverse as Matt Yglesias and Ross Douthat argue that it is time to return to the paradigm abandoned after 9/11. Let’s put the 9/11 attacks and the existential threat it created behind us. With Bin Laden’s death, let’s simply agree that the objectives of the Bush administration’s massive anti-terror campaign have finally been achieved, and that the time for extra-legal, extra-judicial government programs-from torture, to illegal surveillance, to indefinite detention, to secret trials, to nontrials, to the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay-has now passed. There will be no better marker for the end of this era. There will be no better time to inform the world that our flirtation with a system of shadow-laws was merely situational and that the situation now is over.

Although, I agree with Ms. Lithwick that President Obama has a grand opportunity to fulfill some of his campaign promises ending many of the extra-legal abuses of the Bush administration and his own, I disagree on others. Without prosecuting US war criminals — Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, all the lawyers and military commanders — the United States will never regain the stature it once had in the world in Human Rights. Pretending it never happened not going to make all the violations of International and US law go away. It is unrealistic to think it will.

Recently, US State Department spokesperson, P.J. Crowley was forced to tender his resignation becuase he had the audacity to call the inhumane treatment of PFC. Bradley Manning “ridiculous, counterproductive, and stupid”. He is now defending that statement and explaining how Manning’s treatment undermines our own strategic narrative, as his piece in the Guardian explains:

The US should uphold the highest standards towards its citizens, including the WikiLeaks accused. I stand by what I said

   But I understood why the question was asked. Private Manning’s family, joined by a number of human rights organisations, has  questioned the extremely restrictive conditions he has experienced at the brig at Marine Corps base Quantico, Virginia. I focused on the fact that he was forced to sleep naked, which led to a circumstance where he stood naked for morning call.

   Based on 30 years of government experience, if you have to explain why a guy is standing naked in the middle of a jail cell, you have a policy in need of urgent review. The Pentagon was quick to point out that no women were present when he did so, which is completely beside the point.

   Our strategic narrative connects our policies to our interests, values and aspirations. While what we do, day in and day out, is broadly consistent with the universal principles we espouse, individual actions can become disconnected. Every once in a while, even a top-notch symphony strikes a discordant note. So it is in this instance.

   The Pentagon has said that it is playing the Manning case by the book. The book tells us what actions we can take, but not always what we should do. Actions can be legal and still not smart. With the Manning case unfolding in a fishbowl-like environment, going strictly by the book is not good enough. Private Manning’s overly restrictive and even petty treatment undermines what is otherwise a strong legal and ethical position.

   When the United States leads by example, we are not trying to win a popularity contest. Rather, we are pursuing our long-term strategic interest. The United States cannot expect others to meet international standards if we are seen as falling short. Differences become strategic when magnified through the lens of today’s relentless 24/7 global media environment.

   So, when I was asked about the “elephant in the room,” I said the treatment of Private Manning, while well-intentioned, was “ridiculous” and “counterproductive” and, yes, “stupid”.

   I stand by what I said. The United States should set the global standard for treatment of its citizens – and then exceed it. It is what the world expects of us. It is what we should expect of ourselves.

Today, Crowley appeared on the Dylan Ratigan Shoiw and reiterated what he said in his article but hemmed and hawed when Ratigan asked him about a similar leak about classified information to the press.

Mr. Crowley, if we are going to vigorously prosecute Bradley Manning for releasing documents that even the Vice President has said have done no harm. why aren’t you supporting the ferreting out of this other “leaker”? What is the difference if information is given to the press or Wikileaks? The US can hardly be an arbiter of human rights and the rule of law when it can’t apply either to even its own citizens.

Barack now not only owns two wars, a failing economic policy but torture policy as well. After saying that the treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning was “ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid”, State Department Spokesperson, P.J. Crowley, was forced to reign early this morning. Some may not remember Richard M. Nixon’s firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Coxand the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus on October 20, 1973 during the Watergate scandal but it precipitated a firestorm in Congress and the eventual resignation of Nixon from office. I doubt that either the Republicans or the Democrats are that principled these days, this does, however speak volumes about Barack and his loyal supporters who have the audacity to call themselves progressive and liberals.

Glen Greenwald also reminds of the Bush administration “firings” and what Barack had asked us to do:

Remember when the Bush administration punished Gen. Eric Shinseki for his public (and prescient) dissent on the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz plan for Iraq, and all good Democrats thought that was so awful, such a terrible sign of the administration’s refusal to tolerate any open debate? And then there was that time when Bush fired his White House economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, for publicly suggesting that the Iraq War might cost $100 billion, prompting similar cries of outrage from Democrats about how the GOP crushes internal debate and dissent. Obama’s conduct seems quite far from the time during the campaign when Obama-fawning journalists like Time‘s Joe Klein were hailing him for wanting a “team of rivals”, and Obama was saying things like this: “I don’t want to have people who just agree with me. I want people who are continually pushing me out of my comfort zone.”

He further makes the point that Barack has now embraced the policies of of those who instituted world wide torture and illegal eavesdropping. He has refused to prosecute them and given them cover of full presidential immunity and given cover to Manning’s abusers. Yet from the apologists, we get lockstep support of the very same policies that they said they would not tolerate and tell those of us who dare call out Barack, to STFU because he’s a Democrat.

Besides embracing Reagan and his economic, anti-worker policies, he’s now taken a page from Nixon’s playbook. Where is Barack’s sense of justice? His sense of morality? His support of the law and the Constitution? Nixon would be proud.

(Up Date below)

Barack says it’s OK to torture an American soldier who is being held in isolation on an American military base on American soil just miles from the White House. Why? Because the Pentagon said it is. Sound familiar? It should because, just a very short 26 months ago, the other guy who said torture was OK left the White House. It appears he was replaced with his ideological clone, and now, fellow war criminal, Barack who has taken torture, detention and rendition even further than Dick even could have imagined.

State Department spokesperson, P. J. Crowley, who was speaking to a small group at MIT discussing “the new media and the foreign policy”, he let was queried by a young man about Wikileaks:

Charlie deTar: There’s an elephant in the room during this discussion: Wikileaks. The US government is torturing a whistleblower in prison right now. How do we resolve a conversation about the future of new media in diplomacy with the government’s actions regarding Wikileaks?

PJC: “I spent 26 years in the air force. What is happening to Manning is ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid, and I don’t know why the DoD is doing it.

Then today at a press conference on the disaster in Japan, ABC News White House correspondent pulled his cajones out of the lock box in his boss’s office, asking Barack about P.J.’s condemnation of Bradley’s treatment. Barack’s response:

With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are. I can’t go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning’s safety as well. [my emphasis]

So, let me get this straight, the basic standard of treatment of an innocent man who has yet to be formerly charges for eight months is to apply the standards that were condemned at Abu Grab and Guantanamo in 2002?

As Glen Greenwald at Salon so precisely stated in his article today on Amnesty International’s call for protests of Manning’s treatment:

Oh, that’s very reassuring — and such a very thorough and diligent effort by the President to ensure that detainees under his command aren’t being abused.  He asked the Pentagon and they said everything was great — what more is there to know?  Everyone knows that on questions of whether the military is abusing detainees, the authoritative source is . . . the military.  You just ask them if they’re doing anything improper, and once they tell you that they’re not, that’s the end of the matter.  

I have no doubt that George Bush asked the DoD whether everything was being run professionally at Guantanamo and they assured him that they were.  Perhaps the reason there haven’t been any Wall Street prosecutions is because Obama asked Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein if there was any fraud and those banking executives assured the President that there wasn’t.

Glen also highlighted, Dylan Ratigan, MSNBC host, condemnation of Democrats and the so-called left wing, progressive, pragmatic apologists for

remaining silent in the face of civil liberties and other abuses by Obama which would provoke, vociferous and constant objections if carried out by George Bush.  At the end of the segment, Ratigan acknowledges that some have been consistent and have vocally objected to Obama’s civil liberties abuses generally and the treatment of Manning specifically — he refers to me and FDL as examples — and then clarifies that his criticisms are aimed at Democratic politicians and their loyalists, who opportunistically pretended to care about such things when doing so produced partisan advantage (when there was a GOP President), but now ignore them because they no longer do (because there’s a Democratic President).

This is being  done in our names as it was under Bush. It was not acceptable then it is not acceptable now. Not in my name.

Up Date 3.13.11 1428 EDT: P.J. Crowley Resigning As State Department Spokesman: Report

P.J. Crowley is resigning as spokesman for the State Department, CNN reports.

Michael van Poppel at BNO News noted on Twitter after the story broke, “Crowley released a statement on Yemen just 2 hours ago. Seems really abrupt.” Shortly after he added, “Clinton: It is with regret that I have accepted the resignation of Philip J. Crowley as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.”

Politico confirmed reports of Crowley’s resignation on Sunday.

I expected this. You cannot work  for the man if you tell the truth.

The Obama administration is still protecting US war criminals from prosecution in the International Criminal Court. A little noticed clause in the UN Security Council resolution that brought sanctions against Libyan dictator Moammar Gadafi and his regime forbids the prosecution of the mercenaries from nations which are not signatories to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which protects many of the mercenaries Gadaffi has hired to kill Libyan protesters.

“6. Decides that nationals, current or former officials or personnel from a State outside the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya which is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of that State for all alleged acts or omissions arising out of or related to operations in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya established or authorized by the Council, unless such exclusive jurisdiction has been expressly waived by the State;

That clause was inserted at the insistence of the US and was a deal breaker if it was not included. Why would the US do that? After all. hadn’t US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said that all those “who slaughter civilians” would “be held personally accountable”? Well, my dears, it is once again an attempt to prevent a precedent that would permit the prosecutions of Americans  by the ICC for alleged crimes in other conflicts.

So now while protecting US war criminals from justice. Obama is protecting the foreign mercenaries from countries who are not signatories to the ICC from accountability. Good going there, Mr. Rule of Law.

h/t Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com

Obama continues to make Dick Cheney proud.

U.S. Prepares to Lift Ban on Guantánamo Cases

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is preparing to increase the use of military commissions to prosecute Guantánamo detainees, an acknowledgment that the prison in Cuba remains open for business after Congress imposed steep new impediments to closing the facility.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is expected to soon lift an order blocking the initiation of new cases against detainees, which he imposed on the day of President Obama’s inauguration. That would clear the way for tribunal officials, for the first time under the Obama administration, to initiate new charges against detainees.

Charges would probably then come within weeks against one or more detainees who have already been designated by the Justice Department for prosecution before a military commission, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi accused of planning the 2000 bombing of the American destroyer Cole in Yemen; Ahmed al-Darbi, a Saudi accused of plotting, in an operation that never came to fruition, to attack oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz; and Obaydullah, an Afghan accused of concealing bombs.

The rules for admissible evidence that these commission operate under are far loser than a civilian court.

Jerralyn Merrick at Talk Left explains:

One of those expected to be recharged and tried is Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, who was captured in 2002. Al-Nashiri was originally charged by the Bush Administration with participating in the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. He was facing the death penalty. The Obama Administration moved to dismiss the charges against in in 2009. Al-Nashiri’s co-defendants were moved to federal court. Why wasn’t Al-Nashiri? The obvious answer is because the evidence against him was obtained by torture. His lawyer, Lt. Com. Stephen Reyes says:

“Nashiri is being prosecuted at the commissions because of the torture issue,” Mr. Reyes said. “Otherwise he would be indicted in New York along with his alleged co-conspirators.”

Most of those who will be charged and face the death penalty are not prosecutable in a civilian court because not only is all of the evidence against them was obtained through torture but the detainees themselves were tortured. President Obama and Attorney General Holder are prosecuting the wrong people. They should be trying Bush and Cheney who have both publicly confessed to personally authorizing torture.

And if you the average American citizen thought you were safe from this abuse, think again:

Obama administration keeps new policy on Miranda secret

The Justice Department has a new policy for terrorism interrogations — but officials won’t publicly release it

The Obama administration has issued new guidance on use of the Miranda warning in interrogations of terrorism suspects, potentially chipping away at the rule that bars the government from using information in court if it was gathered before a suspect was informed of his right to remain silent and to an attorney.

But the Department of Justice is refusing to publicly release the guidance, with a spokesman describing it in an interview as an “internal document.” So we don’t know the administration’s exact interpretation of Miranda, even though it may have significantly reshaped the way terrorism interrogations are conducted.

If Bush was bad, Obama is taking it to new levels.

Human Rights First, a non-profit, nonpartisan international human rights organization, has issued it report card for President Obama on issues of human rights and the rule of law. The report overall is not encouraging for a President who as a candidate purported to restore the rule of law. His overall grade is “D”.

The President did garner two “A-“‘s with caveats. While he has denounced torture, detainee abuse and secret detention sites, there are still major concerns about “various interrogation techniques that are permitted by Appendix M of the Army Field Manual that are inconsistent with the Geneva Conventions requirement of humane treatment” and “the Joint Special Operations Command detention facility in Parwan, Afghanistan operates outside the authority of the Joint Task Force established to oversee detention.” “B” and  “C-” are given for transferring GTMO detainees cleared for release and trying terror suspects in Federal courts, respectively. He gets a “C” for establishing accountability and oversight of U.S. private security and other contractors but didn’t go far enough holding “private security contractors in zones of armed conflict and elsewhere accountable for violations of international and domestic law, including incidents involving allegations of torture.” The rest of the report is damning.

The President gets a failing grade for not closing Guantanamo although he promised to do that two years ago. Even though the President has publically argued for closure of Guantanamo, he has failed to do so.

The continued use of military commissions to prosecute detainees gets an “F”. The commissions constitute a war crime under international law for a number of reasons:

. . . (the commissions) prosecute as war crimes conduct that was not a violation of the laws of war at the time the conduct occurred. They fail to ensure exclusion of evidence gained through torture or other abuse. They do not ensure that an accused or defense counsel will be able to see all relevant inculpatory and exculpatory evidence. Permissive hearsay rules fail to ensure that an accused or defense counsel will be able to confront witnesses. New rules governing procedure were introduced in the spring. While the rules are an improvement over the past iterations, they do not cure the fundamental flaws of the commissions. The only way to ensure that detainee trials comport with applicable law is to end military commissions and transfer prosecutions to federal criminal court.

An “F” is given for not holding accountable those who authorized and perpetrated torture against prisoners in U.S. custody:

In November 2010, the Justice Department announced that there would be no prosecutions for destruction of CIA tapes that allegedly recorded acts of torture committed by employees or agents of the United States. Special Prosecutor John Durham has yet to release his report on the investigation into whether crimes were committed by U.S. officials during any interrogations that included “enhanced interrogation techniques,” such as waterboarding, a well-known form of torture. The failure to hold accountable those responsible for acts of torture and to provide redress to victims (see “State Secrets” below) is a violation of international law and diminishes the credibility of the United States as standard-bearer for human rights worldwide.

The abuse of states secrets privilege also gains an “F”:

The Obama Administration has repeatedly asserted the “state secrets privilege” to obtain dismissal of legal claims by victims of U.S.-sponsored torture. Although federal courts have procedures they can use to protect the disclosure of classified information, the Administration has instead successfully convinced courts to dismiss these cases in their entirety on state secrets grounds. This has made it impossible for victims of U.S.-sponsored torture to obtain any form of accountability and redress.

“D”‘s are given for:

Not ending indefinite detention:

It was reported on December 22, 2010 that the Obama Administration plans to issue an Executive Order that would provide for legal representation and a review process for the 48 Guantanamo detainees who have been designated to be held indefinitely without trial.

Not articulating a rule of law for targeted killings:

The Obama administration over the past year dramatically stepped up its secret program of targeted killings, particularly along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but has failed to adequately articulate the legal basis for the program and how its choices of targets meet the requirements of international law.

The continued use of extraordinary rendition and lack of diplomatics assurances:

The Obama Administration continues to assert the right to transfer detainees to other countries without the protections of legal process based on diplomatic assurances from the receiving country that the detainee will not be abused, even where that country is known to abuse and torture detainees.

The report gives the President an “Incomplete” on establishing due process in Afghanistan and the remainder of the report enumerates eight things the President can do in the future to improve his “grades”. I wouldn’t hold my breath.