Report Faults 2 Authors of Bush Terror Memos

[TheProfessor]

Report Faults 2 Authors of Bush Terror Memos (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/us/politics/20justice.html?pagewanted=print)

By ERIC LICHTBLAU and SCOTT SHANE
The New York Times

WASHINGTON — After five years of often bitter internal debate, the Justice Department concluded in a report released Friday that the lawyers who gave legal justification to the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation tactics for terrorism suspects used flawed legal reasoning but were not guilty of professional misconduct.

The report, rejecting harsher sanctions recommended by Justice Department ethics lawyers, brings to a close a pivotal chapter in the debate over the legal limits of the Bush administration’s fight against terrorism and whether its treatment of Qaeda prisoners amounted to torture.

The ethics lawyers, in the Office of Professional Responsibility, concluded that two department lawyers involved in analyzing and justifying waterboarding and other interrogation tactics — Jay S. Bybee, now a federal judge, and John C. Yoo, now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley — had demonstrated “professional misconduct.” It said the lawyers had ignored legal precedents and provided slipshod legal advice to the White House in possible violation of international and federal laws on torture. That report was among the documents made public Friday.

But David Margolis, a career lawyer at the Justice Department, rejected that conclusion in a report of his own released Friday. He said the ethics lawyers, in condemning the lawyers’ actions, had given short shrift to the national climate of urgency in which Mr. Bybee and Mr. Yoo acted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “Among the difficulties in assessing these memos now over seven years after their issuance is that the context is lost,” Mr. Margolis said.

Indeed, the documents released Friday provide new details about the atmosphere in which Mr. Yoo and the Justice Department prepared their initial findings in August 2002, shortly after the capture of Abu Zubaydah, suspected of being an operative for Al Qaeda.

The report quotes Patrick Philbin, a senior Justice Department lawyer involved in the review, as saying that because of the urgency of the situation, he had advised Mr. Bybee to sign the memorandum, despite what he saw as Mr. Yoo’s aggressive and problematic interpretation of the president’s broad commander-in-chief powers in trumping international and domestic law.

Mr. Philbin said that “given the situation and the time pressures, and they are telling us this has to be signed tonight — this was like 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock at night on the day it was signed — my conclusion” was that it was permissible for Mr. Bybee to sign the memorandum. “They” apparently referred to White House officials.

In a separate portion of the report, Mr. Yoo denied that the White House or the Central Intelligence Agency, which had requested the legal opinion, had exerted any pressure on him in his legal findings. “I don’t think of them as being particularly aggressive,” Mr. Yoo said, adding, “I had never felt that anybody was pushing us in one direction or another.”

The Office of Professional Responsibility, however, suggested in its report that the legal conclusions were in effect pre-ordained. It said that John Rizzo, the C.I.A. lawyer who requested the opinion, had “candidly admitted the agency was seeking maximum legal protection for its officers” against possible criminal prosecution. Mr. Rizzo objected to the way his remarks were characterized by the office.

Mr. Margolis said that in rejecting harsher sanctions, “this decision should not be viewed as an endorsement of the legal work that underlies those memoranda.” But he said the legal advice of Mr. Yoo and the other lawyers, while “flawed” and insufficient in some areas, did not rise to the level of “professional misconduct,” which could have resulted in bar reviews or other disciplinary action.

Indeed, Mr. Margolis’s 69-page report was often more critical of the ethics office than of the Bush administration lawyers themselves. Mr. Margolis, who has served at the Justice Department for more than three decades and handles many high-level disciplinary issues, saved some stinging criticism for Mr. Yoo.

“While I have declined to adopt O.P.R.’s findings of misconduct, I fear that John Yoo’s loyalty to his own ideology and convictions clouded his view of his obligation to his client and led him to author opinions that reflected his own extreme, albeit sincerely held, view of executive power while speaking for an institutional client,” Mr. Margolis said.

In their responses to the ethics office’s report, Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee adamantly denied that they had done anything but gave their honest and reasoned legal judgments on pressing matters of national security.

O.P.R. officials, however, were not persuaded.

The report said “situations of great stress, danger and fear do not relieve department attorneys of their duty to provide thorough, objective, and candid legal advice, even if that advice is not what the clients want to hear.”

Representative John Conyers Jr., the Michigan Democrat who leads the House Judiciary Committee, said the ethics office report released Friday made clear that the authors of the interrogation memorandums “dishonored their office and the entire Department of Justice.”

Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said, “Mr. Bybee and Mr. Yoo may keep their law licenses, but they will not escape the verdict of history.”

The ethics’ office findings also criticized Steven Bradbury, who wrote four memorandums in 2005 and 2007 also justifying the harsh interrogation tactics. It said “we had serious concerns about some of his analysis” but said the problems did not amount to misconduct.

The ethics report also criticized former Attorney General John Ashcroft and two of his senior aides, Michael Chertoff and Adam G. Ciongoli, saying they “should have looked beyond the surface complexity” of the legal memorandums and pressed harder to determine whether the legal foundations were solid or not. But it did not accuse them of wrongdoing, and other officials defended their work.

The ethics report is not the last word on the emotional national dispute about torture. In August, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. opened a criminal investigation to determine whether the C.I.A. interrogation program broke the law, and that inquiry is expected to continue for months.

But the Justice Department’s findings about its own lawyers are a milestone in the long debate over the treatment of Qaeda prisoners. Interrogators were directed to use coercive methods in an effort to find out whether new terrorist attacks were planned. The interrogators’ bosses, from top C.I.A. officials to former President George W. Bush, have justified their policies by saying the Justice Department’s opinion was that the methods were legal.

So the political debate over interrogation often returned to the legal opinions Mr. Yoo, Mr. Bybee and other officials of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel had written declaring that none of the C.I.A.’s methods were illegal torture.

Some of the brutal interrogation methods that Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee approved for use on Qaeda prisoners, including wall-slamming and the near-drowning of waterboarding, had never before been authorized in American history, and the United States had condemned such treatment as torture and abuse when used by other countries.

Over less than a year starting in August 2002, according to intelligence officials, waterboarding was used on three Qaeda prisoners, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks. The coercive methods set off a heated dispute inside the C.I.A., and their use was suspended after a damning inspector general’s report in 2004.

A scaled-back set of harsh methods was approved by the Justice Department and White House in 2007, but they were rarely if ever used before President Obama banned such methods shortly after taking office.

[Winehole23]

@Doctor Professor The Professor: It would have been just as true for the headline to say the report minimized the finding of fault, and slightly more accurate IMO. Just the same, thanks for posting this, profe. :tu

YTM6-kOpFNE

[boutons_deux]

Clinton did a deal with Repugs not to keep going after the criminals of Reagan's team, but the Repugs double-crossed him and witch-hunted him for years, Repugs being classy, honorable, self-righteous assholes.

Magic Negro is going easy on the Repugs, BIG MISTAKE. The Repugs are trashing him every step of the way, in every direction he takes.

The Repugs are like Muslims, as a Jewish friend explained to me about Muslims. The Repugs and Muslims don't talk, they only understand brutal, fatal, eliminationist force.

[Darrin]

According to the British Ambassador to the United States, President Bush resolved to go to war in Iraq, despite his claims that he was using it as a last resort and would give Iraq every chance, in April of 2002. The Dutch have concluded their investigation into the lead-up to the Iraq war and they have stated there was no justification.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8ZuQndRLTU

Why should we care? If the 104,000 Iraqis that have died, the 35,000 Americans that were injured, and the 4,300 Americans killed (including one of my brother's best friends) don't out-rage you, then maybe the fact that this war has soaked the sponge that is the deficit long before Barack Huessein Obama was ever in office. While there is controversy over the 787 Billion dollars spent on Stimulating the Economy (although independent evaluators have found it did create jobs), can we at least agree that the 700 Billion dollars spent on the Iraq War did nothing for protecting the United States of America from nuclear attack?

"Operation: Iraqi Freedom." It's poetic--like a war Jefferson may fight. However, it's committing the US military to a policing action with no international support for the first time in our history. I know it happened 7 years ago, but it is still relevant. As relevant as a piece of legislation that Bill Clinton signed in the waning days of his Administration that de-regulated the banking industry that led to a flurry of mergers and new partners emerging in new markets.

[George Gervin's Afro]

According to the British Ambassador to the United States, President Bush resolved to go to war in Iraq, despite his claims that he was using it as a last resort and would give Iraq every chance, in April of 2002. The Dutch have concluded their investigation into the lead-up to the Iraq war and they have stated there was no justification.

Why should we care? If the 104,000 Iraqis that have died, the 35,000 Americans that were injured, and the 4,300 Americans killed (including one of my brother's best friends) don't out-rage you, then maybe the fact that this war has soaked the sponge that is the deficit long before Barack Huessein Obama was ever in office. While there is controversy over the 787 Billion dollars spent on Stimulating the Economy (although independent evaluators have found it did create jobs), can we at least agree that the 700 Billion dollars spent on the Iraq War did nothing for protecting the United States of America from nuclear attack?

"Operation: Iraqi Freedom." It's poetic--like a war Jefferson may fight. However, it's committing the US military to a policing action with no international support for the first time in our history. I know it happened 7 years ago, but it is still relevant. As relevant as a piece of legislation that Bill Clinton signed in the waning days of his Administration that de-regulated the banking industry that led to a flurry of mergers and new partners emerging in new markets.


Where have you been? Th resident dead enders are outraged that Obama ddn't keep every campaign promise! He's the biggest liar everyone has seen....and yet they were silent when we were misled into going into an unecessary war.......no outrage then yet we have outrage because not everyone of the heatlhcare negotiations was broadcast on cspan...dead amerians? no outrage.. healthcare reform? this country is going hell because of it...

[EVAY]

It is utterly unsurprising to me that the Justice department lawyers who wrote the opinions are not guilty of anything other than 'bad lawyering'. On the other hand, the guys in the interrogation rooms who were using tactics that were deemd lawful by these guys are being hounded as potential criminals. Lawyers take care of themselves...end of story.

It was always my impression that the lawyer's role in this issue was to determine what was and wasn't 'torture', given the treaties and conventions to which we were a party as a nation. So what if an agency head said 'we want to know how far we can go so you can't blame us later for doing something illegal'? That's the lawyer's job. Say 'this is how far...no more'.

If the justice department allows this whitewash of the lawyers to stand but continues the prosecution of government workers who acted within the guidelines these lawyers set out, it will be another example of lawyer jokes.

[Darrin]

Where have you been? The resident dead enders are outraged that Obama didn't keep every campaign promise! He's the biggest liar everyone has seen....and yet they were silent when we were misled into going into an unecessary war.......no outrage then yet we have outrage because not everyone of the heatlhcare negotiations was broadcast on cspan...dead amerians? no outrage.. healthcare reform? this country is going hell because of it...

That's not what I've heard. I've heard that he was a Trojan horse--a socialist that unleashed his radical agenda on the United States the moment he took the office. The Toyota recalls are because he's the CEO of GM now! He won't work with anyone, he uses the Republicans to prop up his approval rating by inviting them to the White House on some summit here or lecturing them. He's out-of-step with mainstream America! He's weak on defense and hasn't brought us home from Iraq.

It's so bad that we don't need a government anymore! No more intervention! Sure, the businesses will fail and you'll lose your job! But we're good people! When you have no running water, I'm sure that you'll give your neighbor a cup of sugar from the store you looted.

[Darrin]

I just want to tally this up for the people in the cheap seats:

1. Tortured enemy combatants on faulty legal grounds.
2. Withdrew from Kyoto.
3. Misused intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq War. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJCLkRkjysk&feature=related
4. Lied to Congress in the lead-up to the Iraq War while making his case for war. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS5AYQX1m6c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBHndmiZXGc&feature=related
5. Turned a 200-billion-dollar surplus into a 1.3-trillion-dollar deficit.
6. Appointed two Supreme Court Justices that outlawed Campaign Finance Laws and Continues to protect the sovreign rights of corporations over those of the individual.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/232147
7. Members of his administration outed a CIA agent as a form of political retribution and are sitting in jail because of it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/17/60minutes/main3378089.shtml
8. Failed to provide effective relief to American Citizens immediately following Hurricane Katrina.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/12/bush-defends-katrina-response/
9. Former nominee for Homeland Security is about to head to prison. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iLDGE13Lmn5pMFAIMymKy6tphx3wD9DUO82O0

Have I missed anything? I have one more, but it's more of a cheap-shot. Something that former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani seemed to overlook a couple of months ago ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/08/rudy-giuliani-we-had-no-d_n_416033.html ). Still, I wouldn't use that for political gain. However, his party had no problem showing the footage of this incident to make the case at the 2004 Republican National Convention of why he should be elected.

http://www.tressugar.com/Republicans-Air-Graphic-911-Video-RNC-1933140

I've never thought about making the accusation until I heard someone say: "When does it become Barack Obama's economy?" This was after 12 months into his Presidency. When a piece of legislation signed in late 1999 caused the Bank failure to be possible. When the collapse didn't happen on his watch. When I remembered that William Cohen used words like:

"Tremendous threat" and "Immediate," when talking about the threat of Al Qaeda, calling it the number one threat to American Security (Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack) when briefing the 43rd President-elect of the United States.

And this is the party that has all the answers? All politicans are the same? You may have heard me say it, but when was the last time you saw an elected official use that particular club? Excuse me while I stock canned goods as the elections near and Republicans gain in the polls.

[TheProfessor]

Report: Bush Lawyer Said President Could Order Civilians to Be 'Massacred' (http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2010/02/19/report-bush-lawyer-said-president-could-order-civilians-to-be-massacred.aspx)

The chief author of the Bush administration's "torture memo" told Justice Department investigators that the president's war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be "massacred," according to a report released Friday night by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

The views of former Justice lawyer John Yoo were deemed to be so extreme and out of step with legal precedents that they prompted the Justice Department's internal watchdog office to conclude last year that he committed "intentional professional misconduct" when he advised the CIA it could proceed with waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques against Al Qaeda suspects.

The report by OPR concludes that Yoo, now a Berkeley law professor, and his boss at the time, Jay Bybee, now a federal judge, should be referred to their state bar associations for possible disciplinary proceedings. But, as first reported by NEWSWEEK, another senior department lawyer, David Margolis, reviewed the report and last month overruled its findings on the grounds that there was no clear and "unambiguous" standard by which OPR was judging the lawyers. Instead, Margolis, who was the final decision-maker in the inquiry, found that they were guilty of only "poor judgment."

The report, more than four years in the making, is filled with new details into how a small group of lawyers at the Justice Department, the CIA, and the White House crafted the legal arguments that gave the green light to some of the most controversial tactics in the Bush administration's war on terror. They also describe how Bush administration officials were so worried about the prospect that CIA officers might be criminally prosecuted for torture that one senior official—Attorney General John Ashcroft—even suggested that President Bush issue "advance pardons" for those engaging in waterboarding, a proposal that he was quickly told was not possible.

At the core of the legal arguments were the views of Yoo, strongly backed by David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's legal counsel, that the president's wartime powers were essentially unlimited and included the authority to override laws passed by Congress, such as a statute banning the use of torture. Pressed on his views in an interview with OPR investigators, Yoo was asked:

"What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? ... Is that a power that the president could legally—"

"Yeah," Yoo replied, according to a partial transcript included in the report. "Although, let me say this: So, certainly, that would fall within the commander-in-chief's power over tactical decisions."

"To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?" the OPR investigator asked again.

"Sure," said Yoo.

Yoo is depicted as the driving force behind an Aug. 1, 2002, Justice Department memo that narrowly defined torture and then added sections concluding that, in the end, it essentially didn't matter what the fine print of the congressionally passed law said: The president's authority superseded the law and CIA officers who might later be accused of torture could also argue that were acting in "self defense" in order to save American lives.

The original torture memo was prompted by concerns by John Rizzo, the CIA's general counsel, that the agency's officers might be criminally prosecuted if they proceeded with waterboarding and other rough tactics in their interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, an allegedly high-level Al Qaeda-linked operative who had been captured in Pakistan and in the spring of 2002 was transferred to a CIA "black site" prison in Thailand. Rizzo wanted the Justice Department to provide a blanket letter declining criminal prosecution, essentially providing immunity for any action engaged in by CIA officers, a request that Michael Chertoff, then chief of the Justice Department's criminal division, refused to provide. It was at that point that Yoo began crafting his opinion, the contents of which he actively reviewed with senior officials at the White House. "Let's plan on going over [to the White House] at 3:30 to see some other folks about the bad things opinion," he wrote in a July 12, 2002, e-mail quoted in the OPR report.

The report describes two meetings at the White House with then-chief counsel Alberto Gonzales and "possibly Addington." (Addington refused to talk to the OPR investigators but testified before Congress that he did in fact have at least one meeting with Yoo in the summer of 2002 to discuss the contents of the torture opinion.) After the second meeting, on July 16, 2002, Yoo began writing new sections of his memo that included his controversial views on the president's powers as commander in chief. When one of his associates, Patrick Philbin, questioned the inclusion of that section and suggested it be removed, Yoo replied, "They want it in there," according to an account given by Philbin to OPR investigators. Philbin said he didn't know who the "they" was but assumed it was whoever it was that requested the opinion (technically, that was the CIA, although, as the report makes clear, the White House was also pressing for it).

Yoo provided extensive comments to OPR defending his views of the president's war-making authority and disputing OPR's take that he slanted them to accommodate the White House. He did not immediately respond to NEWSWEEK'S request for comment Friday night.

[Darrin]

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[Winehole23]

18 of 23 links are to youtube, with a running time well over 2 hours.

Enjoy!

[Winehole23]

Excuse me while I stock canned goods as the elections near and Republicans gain in the polls.Well at least you have spare time to bitch about it here, night stocker. :tu

Your bullet points probably wont draw much return fire until somebody feels personally fired upon, or gets the professorial urge. Just guessing. Most people don't drop here in with such an organized list of talking points.

BTW, dropping all that youtube on us is heinous. JMO. Just pick one, dude, and maybe people will talk about that...just pick the best one.

You watched em all, right? :wow

[Winehole23]

As yet no opinion registered by the Professor.

Darrin incorporated the theme into a prepared laundry list of gripes about Republicans, GGA into his more intuitive one, and EVAY (per usual (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/001093.html)) favored us with an articulate, real take on the OP.

[Winehole23]

Clinton did a deal with Repugs not to keep going after the criminals of Reagan's team.I don't recall that. Can you back that up?


Magic Negro is going easy on the Repugs, BIG MISTAKE. The Repugs are trashing him every step of the way, in every direction he takes.It's their job.


The Repugs are like Muslims, as a Jewish friend explained to me about Muslims. The Repugs and Muslims don't talk, they only understand brutal, fatal, eliminationist force.Question: How does a person end up resembling what they hate?

[Winehole23]

By emulation, verdad?

[Winehole23]

If you emulate what you hate you can become it. Inhumanity can infect those who battle it mercilessly.

[Darrin]

Well at least you have spare time to bitch about it here, night stocker. :tu

Your bullet points probably wont draw much return fire until somebody feels personally fired upon, or gets the professorial urge. Just guessing. Most people don't drop here in with such an organized list of talking points.

BTW, dropping all that youtube on us is heinous. JMO. Just pick one, dude, and maybe people will talk about that...just pick the best one.

You watched em all, right? :wow

As it happened--I looked it up last night. Guys, it's 10-minute video segments. There's a 90-minute documentary and a 40-minute rebuttal from the former Vice-President. That's two hours. It's not Gone With the Wind. The documentary and Cheney's response to the criticism I watched a long time ago. I was cleaning in my apartment at the time, listening to it on television.

I threw things. I screamed and "THEY DID THIS IN OUR NAME?!?!"

[Darrin]

As yet no opinion registered by the Professor.

Darrin incorporated the theme into a prepared laundry list of gripes about Republicans, GGA into his more intuitive one, and EVAY (per usual (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/001093.html)) favored us with an articulate, real take on the OP.

Let me clarify. My concern is for the nation. They didn't run Dick Cheney out of the party for allowing torture, because it was against people who want to kill us...mostly. Never mind that it is illegal. They said it was the liberal media, the people who want Al Qaeda to win, and legalizing partisanship. And that's a talking point.

What I brought up was not a talking point. I am talking about this administration's effect on our laws, our Constitution, our spending and the fact that somehow they have cured all ills, gotten rid of all the bad elements, is factually wrong. It's the same party.

What's next? What more abuse of the system could they perform? What domestic issues will be overlooked? What infrastructure will be allowed to fail? What will become a crime?

I'm afraid for our future. And if you want to label me an alarmist, I wouldn't blame your cynicism. We speak in hyperbole all the time. But until all of this is challenged, everyone is told to get the hell out of the political arena, I will continue to fear leadership like this.

[FromWayDowntown]

Regardless of the recommendations concerning discipline, the reports seem to be contiguous in their conclusion that Professor Yoo had little to no legal basis for his opinions.

I don't really care what happens to Professor Yoo or those who signed off on his work. What has always bothered me is the willingness to just accept Professor Yoo's legal arguments as proof of the propriety of certain American actions over the 8-9 years. Indeed, those memos form the basis of virtually all of the conduct of the GWOT beyond the military theater of operations (and, to some extent, have defined even how we actually fight that war). Will those who have abided by Professor Yoo's opinions in supporting those actions now rethink their position with respect to things like torture and detainment?

[byrontx]

Clinton did a deal with Repugs not to keep going after the criminals of Reagan's team, but the Repugs double-crossed him and witch-hunted him for years, Repugs being classy, honorable, self-righteous assholes.

Magic Negro is going easy on the Repugs, BIG MISTAKE. The Repugs are trashing him every step of the way, in every direction he takes.

The Repugs are like Muslims, as a Jewish friend explained to me about Muslims. The Repugs and Muslims don't talk, they only understand brutal, fatal, eliminationist force.

This.

And the do-nothing dems in congress still trying to appease the just-say-no republicans when they should be kicking their ass.

[Winehole23]

Will those who have abided by Professor Yoo's opinions in supporting those actions now rethink their position with respect to things like torture and detainment?Having accepted Yoo's opinions in the first place? I doubt it. This report will get boiled down to the finding of no misconduct and held up as an "exoneration", most likely.

Edit: see here, for example -- http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzE4YWFkNDk1NTVkZTVhZmVlNjdiMGVhYzVkMmYyOGM=

[Darrin]

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

[Winehole23]

Humor us, Darrin. Not everyone's familiar with the US Constitution. What part of it applies to the conversation?

[FromWayDowntown]

Having accepted Yoo's opinions in the first place? I doubt it. This report will get boiled down to the finding of no misconduct and held up as an "exoneration", most likely.

Most likely. The cynical pragmatist in me thinks that it would be a rather dangerous precedent to apply intellectual honesty to politics.

[FromWayDowntown]

Maybe I should have posted that in blue.

[EVAY]

Regardless of the recommendations concerning discipline, the reports seem to be contiguous in their conclusion that Professor Yoo had little to no legal basis for his opinions.

I don't really care what happens to Professor Yoo or those who signed off on his work. What has always bothered me is the willingness to just accept Professor Yoo's legal arguments as proof of the propriety of certain American actions over the 8-9 years. Indeed, those memos form the basis of virtually all of the conduct of the GWOT beyond the military theater of operations (and, to some extent, have defined even how we actually fight that war). Will those who have abided by Professor Yoo's opinions in supporting those actions now rethink their position with respect to things like torture and detainment?

I doubt it, don't you? I mean, the raising of the question and the search for a legal as opposed to a moral rational sort of says it all, doesn't it?

I mean, I used to run into this in corporate culture, i.e., the question is not whether or not it is moral or ethical, the question is 'how much trouble are gonna get in if we do it? Thus, the decison-makers are, at best, amoral, nothing more. They only want to know if they have 'cover' for something, or else they want to make sure that if they go ahead and do something that they think or know is wrong, that the person who wants the thing done is as much on the 'hook' for it as they are. If they don't do this, they know damn well (from bitter experiences) that they are gonna be left 'twisting slowly slowly in the wind' while the politicans or policy makers who directed them are busy saying 'Well, I nevah!'

[Darrin]

Humor us, Darrin. Not everyone's familiar with the US Constitution. What part of it applies to the conversation?

http://www.thecre.com/fedlaw/legal22/warpow.htm

[Winehole23]

I can see that. That's not strictly topical, but it's in the general neighborhood.

Bottom line: Congress is too gutless to wage war and has been for a long time. Congress doesn't really want the authority, but reserves bitching privileges.

[Winehole23]

So long as the President feigns due consultation, everything's copacetic.

[Winehole23]

Most likely. The cynical pragmatist in me thinks that it would be a rather dangerous precedent to apply intellectual honesty to politics.It's done all the time...

....and duly ignored.

[Winehole23]

...