While much about the future of post-Qaddafi Libya remains murky, some things are already quite clear. For starters, Republican leaders and GOP White House hopefuls simply cannot bring themselves to credit President Obama in any way for the apparent success of the rebellion. Unsurprisingly, the same conservative echo chamber which cheered as the United States spent over $1 trillion, losing 4,500 American soldiers and wounding 30,000 in Iraq is furious over the $900 million price tag for the operation in Libya. And now, the right-wing's supposed democracy promoters are denouncing the role of sharia law in the draft Libya constitution. As for the virtually identical place of Islam in the Iraqi constitution the U.S. helped craft under George W. Bush? Not so much.

On Monday, the Heritage Foundation was quick to sound the alarm about sharia in the early draft of a new Libyan Constitution.

Much of the document describes political institutions that will sound familiar to citizens of Western liberal democracies, including rule of law, freedom of speech and religious practice, and a multi-party electoral system.

But despite the Lockean tenor of much of the constitution, the inescapable clause lies right in Part 1, Article 1: "Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia)." Under this constitution, in other words, Islam is law. That makes other phrases such as "there shall be no crime or penalty except by virtue of the law" and "Judges shall be independent, subject to no other authority but law and conscience" a bit more ominous.

If this verbiage all sounds familiar, it should. After all, the language is strikingly similar to the Iraqi Constitution the U.S. helped birth in October 2005. As it turns out, Tripoli's new Article 1 bears an uncanny resemblance to Baghdad's Article 2:

First: Islam is the official religion of the State [of Iraq] and it is a fundamental source of legislation:

A. No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.

B. No law that contradicts the principles of democracy may be established.

C. No law that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms stipulated in this constitution may be established.

Continue reading »

Not content with its past role in screening candidates for positions in the Bush judiciary and Justice Department, the conservative Federalist Society is back to defend the Bush torture team it helped create. Ironically, the Federalists' conference call Monday came just three days after McClatchy reported that Steven Bradbury - one of its members and a figure at the center of the storm over the release of the OLC torture members - refuted their claim that the military's SERE training program proved the United States did not torture terror detainees.

As Politico reported, the National Review hosted a media conference call featuring many of the usual suspects among the Bush torture apologists:

The lawyers' group, which was a pipeline for judges in the Bush White House, is hosting a call this morning with National Review writer Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, lawyer David Rivkin, and Chapman University Law School Dean John Eastman.

Their claim, as Politico noted, was that the "much-criticized memos from the Office of Legal Counsel were perfectly reasonable." McCarthy brushed off the CIA's use of waterboarding on terror suspects by proclaiming "they were not going to be killed by the tactic." Eastman, whose university is hosting Federalist Society member and Bush torture architect John Yoo as a visiting professor, insisted the treatment was no worse than that undergone by American service personnel:

Eastman responded to The New York Times's Scott Shane about the use of waterboarding during the Spanish Inquisition and by the Japanese military, and responded "that psychological reviews of graduates of the military's SERE program, in which members of the U.S. military were waterboarded, is a more relevant example.

"Why would I go and look at something the Spanish Inquisition did just because it was also called 'waterboarding'?" he asked.

Perhaps because, as the Bush Office of Legal Counsel chief and 2005 torture memo author Steven Bradbury concluded four years ago, "SERE trainees know it is part of a training program."

Continue reading »

On Tuesday's "Washington Journal" a caller from Florida asks former Reagan Justice Dept. official and current torture-apologist David Rivkin to volunteer to be water boarded so he can decide whether or not it should considered torture.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

Let's hear what a different former Reagan Justice Dept. official has to say.