A memo? Oh really...

Today the Pentagon released a memo from 2003 that attempted to legally justify the use of torture in the military against suspected Al-Quaida persons of interest. The memo basically said that because the President is the Commander in Chief, his decisions trump the statutes banning such torture do not apply.

Here's some legal jargon for you peeps like me (and believe me, it's questionable legal jargon at best):

We concluded that different canons of construction indicate that generally applicable criminal laws do not apply to the milliary interrogation of alien unlawful combatants held abroad.

Were it otherwise, the application of these statutes to the interrogation of enemy combatants undertaken by military personnel would conflict with the president's commander-in-chief power.

Um.....right. For you non-legal types out there, the premise behind this is faulty from the start.

This whole thing reminds me that I need to renew my ACLU membership. Maybe I did...I can't remember. In any event, it was the good people at the ACLU who filed suit in New York in 2004 regarding this type of thing that precipitated the memo's release.

God Bless the USA.