Let's enjoy a little torture

This administration just loves torture. On the very same day that the Pentagon rejected the harshest torture tactics, Bush's kangaroo court bill proposes they be legalized:

Many of the harsh interrogation techniques repudiated by the Pentagon on Wednesday would be made lawful by legislation put forward the same day by the Bush administration. And the courts would be forbidden from intervening.

The proposal is in the last 10 pages of an 86-page bill devoted mostly to military commissions, and it is a tangled mix of cross-references and pregnant omissions.

But legal experts say it adds up to an apparently unique interpretation of the Geneva Conventions, one that could allow C.I.A. operatives and others to use many of the very techniques disavowed by the Pentagon, including stress positions, sleep deprivation and extreme temperatures.

The bill also tries to force the Courts to stand clear:

…Indeed, the proposed legislation takes pains to try to ensure that the Supreme Court will not have a second bite at the apple. “The act makes clear,” it says in its introductory findings, “that the Geneva Conventions are not a source of judicially enforceable individual rights.”

Though lawsuits will almost certainly be filed challenging the bill should it become law, most legal experts said Congress probably had the power to restrict the courts’ jurisdiction in this way.

I wonder who "most legal experts" are. For the most part this article quotes John Yoo, Bush's former legal expert who proposed a definition of torture that only included murder or permanent organ destruction as acts of torture. If he is "most legal experts," I think I'd like to see what some others have to say.

And, of course, the legislation protects anyone who has or will commit acts of torture on behalf of Bush and his cronies:

The proposed legislation would provide retroactive immunity from prosecution to government agents who used harsh methods after the Sept. 11 attacks. And, as President Bush suggested on Wednesday, it would ensure that those techniques remain lawful.

Interesting that they don't protect acts happening before 9/11. I guess they still want to bring war crimes charges against Clinton.