Sunday, March 18, 2007

Well, I'll Be

The Independent today:
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's dramatic confessions before a US military hearing are beginning to backfire on the Bush administration. Legal experts are casting serious doubt about their validity as evidence, and human rights activists say they only illuminate a "sham process" of justice in the US war on terror, including the apparent use of torture on Mohammed and potentially dozens of other al-Qa'ida suspects.
Helmut the other day:
...the fact that testimony has been achieved through torture will always haunt the US, morally and politically. No matter how fairly the actual tribunals are conducted, their legitimacy is in eternal suspension. It will be difficult to convince anyone that they are anything other than kangaroo courts, regardless of whether they are or not. This is the legacy of the Bush administration's use of torture in the "war on terror."...

This distrust will bleed into following presidencies. It can only be corrosive of the relationship between the public and its representatives, between citizens and their faith in their democratic government...

The Khalid Sheik Mohammed tribunal will always be a kangaroo court. American legitimacy on such matters is wrecked. This is not our fault for thinking about it or discussing it. This is the result of the administration's conduct of both domestic and foreign policy.

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