Rebuking bush

Speculation is that the American Bar Association will rebuke Bush at their annual convention next week:

The American Bar Association will gather its membership for an annual national convention next week. One topic on the agenda will be President George W. Bush's July 20 executive order on interrogations and torture, which the body may criticize in a proposed resolution.

"The resolution concludes that the Executive order is 'inconsistent with US obligations under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions,'" said Michael Posner, the President of Human Rights First, a nonprofit organization that was formerly known as the Lawyers' Committee on Human Rights.

Posner suggested that the resolution was likely to pass.

"This resolution will be debated and voted on by the House of Delegates next Monday or Tuesday at the ABA’s annual meeting in San Francisco," the human rights attorney said. "It is noteworthy that the resolution has been endorsed by the ABA’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security, which has been supportive of many of the Administration’s post-9/11 policies and actions and traditionally has favored broad executive authority on matters of national security."

The rebuke of Bush's executive order by the top national organization for attorneys comes in an indirect manner. The resolution calls on Congress to pass legislation that supersedes the July 20 executive order. It also calls on Congress to ensure that wherever detainees are held by US government agencies, including the CIA, they are protected under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Common Article 3 guarantees basic rights of humane treatment for individuals caught up in armed conflict, regardless of their status.

I hope this goes through, but I must say I'm pretty skeptical. The ABA hasn't done much to stop this guy from trammeling the Constitution in the past.