Shame

via the Daily Kos:

1999 US Report to UN Committee Against Torture:

Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offense under the law of the United States. No official of the Government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture.

The Geneva Conventions are clear rules on how to conduct warfare, implemented for self preservation. They are the ultimate "Do onto to others As you would have them Do onto you."

Every soldier in every even halfway civilized country for the last 50 years learned these rules. They are part of basic training and the lesson may only take an hour or so, but the impact of these rules is immediate and no soldier will forget them since it is these rules that will guarantee his survival and well-being if he should get captured.

All signatories of the Geneva Conventions implemented them as national law, as did US Congress, who ratified them as federal law.

They are the law.

And now we have this.

Both Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the No. 2 official at the Pentagon, and Gen. Peter Pace, the No. 2 U.S. general, admitted that the current official interrogation rules implemented in Iraq violate the Geneva Conventions.

These interrogation rules instruct US soldiers in how to implement what is generally known as TORTURE.

These rules were clearly approved by the generals in the field and at least signed off on by Pentagon lawyers. Legally and morally, this makes them war criminals, nothing else.

Since the Bush administration came to power they were fighting the creation of the International Criminal Court and it becomes now more and more clear why this was of such a high priority for them. From somewhere high up in this administration somebody has been actively supporting these actions in complete disdain of international law and human rights.

They have brought untold suffering to the victims of these interogations and they have brought shame onto the United States. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.