Bush Administration Wants To Make Ordering Torture Retroactively Legal

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Didn’t see this on the front pages, what with all the Red Alert! happening the very day after it becomes clear that incumbent war supporters will be in grave danger unless the public is re-convinced on the war.

But this fine nugget was squeezed into page A21 in today’s L.A. Times (about one-fifth the size of the adjacent story on teenagers’ cell phone video preferences — this just in!) following up on this story in the Washington Post:

The Bush administration has drafted amendments to the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policymakers from possible criminal charges for authorizing humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees, according to lawyers who have seen the proposal.

[snip]
"I think what this bill can do is in effect immunize past crimes. That’s why it’s so dangerous," said a third attorney, Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

Fidell said the initiative was "not just protection of political appointees but also CIA personnel who led interrogations."

Interrogation practices "follow from policies that were formed at the highest levels of the administration," said a fourth attorney, Scott Horton. "The administration is trying to insulate policymakers under the War Crimes Act."

Nice.  You can just smell the democracy on these people.