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A smoking-gun February 7, 2002 Order titled "Humane Treatment of al-Qaeda and Taliban Detainees" stated "none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with al-Qaeda (or Taliban) detainees in Afghanistan 'or elsewhere throughout the world....' " It meant "terrorist" detainees have no rights. They can be imprisoned, held indefinitely, tried in military commissions (with no right of appeal), tortured and executed.
Other documents authorized anything in the "war on terror," including supreme presidential power.
A March 14, 2003 memo titled "Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States" became known as "the Torture Memo" because it swept away all legal restraints and authorized military interrogators to use extreme measures amounting to torture. It also let the president as commander-in-chief use "the fullest range of power....to protect the nation." (He) "enjoys complete discretion in the exercise of his authority in conducting operations against hostile forces." It gave him life or death power over anyone called an unlawful combatant, including US citizens.
International law expert Francis Boyle denounced the designation, calling it a:
"quasi-category (of) legal nihilism where human beings (including US citizens) can be disappeared, detained incommunicado, denied access to attorneys and regular courts, tried by kangaroo courts, executed, tortured, assassinated and subjected to numerous other manifestations of State Terrorism" on the pretext of protecting national security.
What George Bush began, Obama continues, including at Guantanamo, despite issuing January Executive Orders banning torture, ordering the facility closed, and directing the CIA to shut its secret prison network.
That was then. This is now. Political persecutions, extraordinary renditions, secret detentions, kangaroo court justice, and torture remain official US policy as part of the administration's permanent war agenda and continued "war on terror," renamed the "Overseas Contingency Operation."
Defiled is Abraham Lincoln's Lieber Code on humane and responsible behavior toward combatants and civilians in times of war. Also the Hague and Geneva Conventions, Geneva's Common Article 3, Nuremberg Principles, UN Charter, UN Convention Against Torture, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, US Army Field Manual 27-10, US War Crimes Act and Torture Statute, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and other laws pertaining to crimes of war, against humanity, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
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