#143 - His Inconsistent Record on Human Rights

Press Conference of the President After G8 Summit
Savannah, Georgia

Q Mr. President, the Justice Department issued an advisory opinion last year declaring that as Commander-in-Chief you have the authority to order any kind of interrogation techniques that are necessary to pursue the war on terror. Were you aware of this advisory opinion? Do you agree with it? And did you issue any such authorization at any time?

THE PRESIDENT: No, the authorization I issued, David, was that anything we did would conform to U.S. law and would be consistent with international treaty obligations. That's the message I gave our people.

[...]

Q Mr. President, I wanted to return to the question of torture. What we've learned from these memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out a way that U.S. officials can torture detainees without running afoul of the law. So when you say that you want the U.S. to adhere to international and U.S. laws, that's not very comforting. This is a moral question: Is torture ever justified?

THE PRESIDENT: Look, I'm going to say it one more time. If I -- maybe -- maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you. We're a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws, and that might provide comfort for you. And those were the instructions out of -- from me to the government.

Ah. So we're supposed to be comforted by the fact that Bush instructed the Defense Department to conform to U.S. law when interrogating prisoners in Iraq. (You think he'd be upset that DOD apparently didn't listen. But no.)

Meanwhile, in Cuba, the U.S. has held its "unarmed combatants" in violation of U.S. and international law for more than two years. Apparently, those he has labeled terrorists from the battlefields of Afghanistan do not deserve rights while those he has labeled terrorists from the cities of Iraq do.

His appalling inconsistency when it comes to human rights does not give us comfort.