Narrow Victory for the US Constitution: "The entire basis of our system of law rests on the right of an accused person, no matter how heinous the alleged crime, to rebut those accusations before an impartial judge. Strip that away, and you have a dictatorship.
It is shocking to have to say so, but it is also fortunate that an earlier generation of Americans had the foresight to commit the United States to international conventions on the treatment of prisoners. When the United States signs and ratifies a treaty, the provisions become a binding part of domestic law.
When the United States signed the Third Geneva Convention, the understood purpose was to protect future American prisoners of war from brutal treatment by lawless foreign nations. How ironic that the convention on the treatment of prisoners has become a principal bulwark restraining the lawlessness of an American administration. "
- posted by geoff @ #