TOP LEGAL MILITARY OFFICER WOULD ALLOW EVIDENCE FROM WATERBOARDING

Who is this guy Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann who is overseeing the prosecutors in forthcoming cases at Guantanamo? He believes that the military tribunals should be able to introduce "evidence" obtained through waterboarding. Hasn't he ever heard of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution barring the government from forcing an accused to testify against himself?

Josh White reports in today's The Washington Post:

"Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, who oversees the prosecutors who will try the detainees at military commissions, said that while "torture" is illegal, he cannot say whether waterboarding violates the law. Nor would he say that such evidence would be barred at trial.

"If the evidence is reliable and probative, and the judge concludes that it is in the best interest of justice to introduce that evidence, ma'am, those are the rules we will follow," Hartmann said in response to questions from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing.

The government and Hartmann will undoubtedly argue that the cases before the military tribunals are not "criminal" but arising from "warfare." And therefore the protections of the Constitution do not apply. Even if we grant the government's argument, which is not all that strong, what would it say about American justice to use evidence obtained from the rack and convict the accused on its basis. Most conservatives and some Republicans argue that the protections of Constitution do not apply to foreigners and certainly do not apply to foreigners "outside" of the United States. But this shows these persons to be mean-spirited and medieval.

It is not just because of the U.S. Constitution that we enjoy basic rights to life, liberty and the rule of law. It is because of these fundamental rights that the U.S. Constitution is what it is. First came these individual inalienable rights, then came the Constitution, not the other way around.

Shame on Gen. Hartmann for even considering allowing evidence obtained from torture or waterboarding. He reduces U.S. justice to the level of the Inquisition where people confessed to be consorts of the devil after being stretched and burnt on the rack.