Torture: now Congress is accountable.

Summary

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George W. Bush accountable for prisoner abuse scandals

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Torture: now Congress is accountable.

Since 9/11, the Bush administration's approach to the complex interplay between security and human rights has been anything but nuanced: time and again, a primitive concept of security has simply trumped human rights. The country that once gave the world the Nuremberg Tribunal, the United Nations, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is now better known for torturing prisoners and detaining them indefinitely without trial, not as an occasional deviation, but, as has become increasingly clear, as policy at the highest levels. In the process, we have alienated U.S. allies and pleased dictators throughout the world, who point to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo to justify their own excesses.

The administration's questionable practices have gone hand in hand with an expansive theory of executive power that essentially denies Congress the power to control the president's actions in wartime. Yet, instead of asserting its rightful place in the constitutional frame...

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