Consitutional Purgatory: You're Either Dead, Alive, or a Detainee

U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas Hogan recently dismissed charges holding military leaders responsible for prisoner torture in Iraq and Afghanistan. Human Rights First and the American Civil Liberties Union filed the complaint against the quartet of big-name defendants: Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense; retired Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of US Military forces in Iraq at the time; and previous Abu Ghraib prison commanders Col. Thomas Pappas and former Brigadier General Janis Karpinski.

The plaintiff cites specific tortures, mentioned in a BBC News report, which include electric shock, stabbing, beatings, and torture with aggressive dogs, all inflicted upon prisoners (5 of whom are from Iraq, 4 from Afghanistan) who were never charged with a crime.

So who's accountable? Certainly not Rumsfeld, who paved the way by authorizing new methods of interrogation at Guantanamo Bay. Neither is Sanchez, who, although denying it under oath, authorized similar methods of interrogation at Abu Ghraib, violating Geneva Convention statutes outlawing coercive force. That leaves Karpinski and Pappas, since they were allegedly present as the officers they commanded tortured prisoners. No, they're not responsible either. Didn't you hear? Those prisoners don't technically have rights in the U.S. In fact, they don't even have standing to pursue their claim against the defendants, said Hogan.

P.S.: By the way, by precedent, government officials can't be sued for actions in office.

Come again? People were ruthlessly tortured, violating not just the U.S. consitution and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) but international law, and no one is to blame? Well, wrote Hogan in his 58-page opinion, this case does "constitute an indictment of the humanity with which the United States treats its detainees", but those "constitutional rights" y'all mention--see, they don't apply to foreigners. Especially not to enemy foreigners against whom the U.S. happens to be fighting a war. Oh, and that Geneva Convention thing, the one that says coercive force can't be used on prisoners under the law of war, well you can just forget about that too.

Needless to say, the ACLU is not pleased.