Is George Bush About to Pardon Everyone?
The President of the United States has a power under Article 2 Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States. Various Presidents, including (most famously) President Ford and President Clinton have used it. It is a wide power that can clear an individual of any federal charge or crime against the United States whether committed or mooted, so that no prosecution can ever be brought. It is, except in the case of impeachment, unchecked.
Since last summer, there has been serious talk in Washington DC of President Bush issuing a blanket pardon--not an individual one--to anyone involved in his interrogation programme, in case the Obama Administration investigates it. There is talk of a 'Truth Commission' in the Senate which has been prompting discussion of pardons for some time. Even if the Senate initiated immediate impeachment procedures and named anyone involved in torture, as a class, as a potential witness, since the Senate and House are not presently constituted and since the presidential term would run out before any impeachment procedure, Bush may well be able to do this.
The situation is complicated because in 2006, before the elections, the Congress allowed a 'pardon bill' to pass absolving some of those who followed orders from any future blame, but not all, and probably not legal advisers, or the Vice-President, or any at command level. It also worked unpredictably, by vaguely auhorising actions suspending habeas corpus, and parts of it were as I understand it found to be unconstitutional.
In addition, though international law could see people in the Hague, countries such as Afghanistan in which torture has gone on have created a precedent of pardoning people and US citizens cannot be tried in the Hague on pain of a furious response.
So this is what a war on terror, against one of the most vile assaults on human beings' minds and lives ever launched, extreme Islamism, has come down to. Abraham Lincoln bent the constitution, and knew it, when he instituted martial law courts against southerners in the Civil War. At least he was riven by guilt. Franklin Roosevelt seems to have suspected that Order 9066, the notorious Nisei order, was wrong, but the Supreme Court validated it, and anyway he felt pushed by World War II. Yet here, there may be no acknowledgement, no accountability, no investigation--just a tacit use of a widely drawn power to excuse what would be war crimes.
Just remember this point. Thousands of people who may have ordered torture, even if a few of them found out things that kept us, all in the west, safe, could be about to get away with it, and we'll never know what went on if they do.
In the United States of America.
The President of the United States has a power under Article 2 Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States. Various Presidents, including (most famously) President Ford and President Clinton have used it. It is a wide power that can clear an individual of any federal charge or crime against the United States whether committed or mooted, so that no prosecution can ever be brought. It is, except in the case of impeachment, unchecked.
Since last summer, there has been serious talk in Washington DC of President Bush issuing a blanket pardon--not an individual one--to anyone involved in his interrogation programme, in case the Obama Administration investigates it. There is talk of a 'Truth Commission' in the Senate which has been prompting discussion of pardons for some time. Even if the Senate initiated immediate impeachment procedures and named anyone involved in torture, as a class, as a potential witness, since the Senate and House are not presently constituted and since the presidential term would run out before any impeachment procedure, Bush may well be able to do this.
The situation is complicated because in 2006, before the elections, the Congress allowed a 'pardon bill' to pass absolving some of those who followed orders from any future blame, but not all, and probably not legal advisers, or the Vice-President, or any at command level. It also worked unpredictably, by vaguely auhorising actions suspending habeas corpus, and parts of it were as I understand it found to be unconstitutional.
In addition, though international law could see people in the Hague, countries such as Afghanistan in which torture has gone on have created a precedent of pardoning people and US citizens cannot be tried in the Hague on pain of a furious response.
So this is what a war on terror, against one of the most vile assaults on human beings' minds and lives ever launched, extreme Islamism, has come down to. Abraham Lincoln bent the constitution, and knew it, when he instituted martial law courts against southerners in the Civil War. At least he was riven by guilt. Franklin Roosevelt seems to have suspected that Order 9066, the notorious Nisei order, was wrong, but the Supreme Court validated it, and anyway he felt pushed by World War II. Yet here, there may be no acknowledgement, no accountability, no investigation--just a tacit use of a widely drawn power to excuse what would be war crimes.
Just remember this point. Thousands of people who may have ordered torture, even if a few of them found out things that kept us, all in the west, safe, could be about to get away with it, and we'll never know what went on if they do.
In the United States of America.
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