redblueamerica.com

By now you've probably heard that the goverment has released a 2003 memo to the Pentagon authorizing "harsh interrogation techniques." The memo was later rescinded, and it seems the Pentagon never got around to doing the worst of what it was authorized to do.

The most fascinating part of the coverage, to me, is this:

Sent to the Pentagon's general counsel on March 14, 2003, by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the memo provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of war. It contends that numerous laws and treaties forbidding torture or cruel treatment should not apply to U.S. interrogations in foreign lands because of the president's inherent wartime powers.

Here's part one of the memorandum. (PDF)

Here's part two of the memorandum. (PDF)

It's the treaty part of Yoo's assertion that fascinates me. Many of those treaties were meant to govern behavior during wartime. That's the whole point. That's why previous presidents negotiated -- and Congresses ratified -- those treaties. To argue that rules governing wartime behavior can be ignored because we're at war is the very definition of sophistry.