Scalia says torture is OK

External News Source Text:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia rejected the notion that US courts have any control over the actions of American troops at Guantanamo Bay, argued that torture of terror detainees is not banned under the US Constitution and insisted that the high court has no obligation to act as a moral beacon for other nations.

"We don't pretend to be some Western Mullahs who decide what is right and wrong for the whole world," Scalia told a BBC interviewer Tuesday, defending narrow interpretation of the reach the US Constitution gives the nine justices on the country's high court.

Scalia said it was "extraordinary" to suggest that the 8th Amendment, which prohibits the government from engaging in "cruel and unusual punishment," could be applied to the actions of US interrogators questioning foreign subjects detained overseas. In his view, Scalia said that while the 8th Amendment would prohibit locking up someone indefinitely as punishment for a crime, for example, the CIA or military would be perfectly justified keeping a suspected insurgent or member of al Qaeda imprisoned forever if the detainee refused to answer questions.

rawstory.com...

The problem with the power structure these guys are developing is that Bush is in charge of it all. He's the one who decides who an "insurgent" is, he's the one who decides who an al qaeda operative is, he's the one who decides who gets eavesdropped on, and who gets detained indefinately without benefit of the courts even if they're an American citizen.

Now, it seems quite clear, Bush will be the one who decides who gets tortured. How long before it's political opponents who are tortured and detained indefinately?

We're not that far away...