WASHINGTON — A federal judge said Friday that he would not rule immediately on whether to hold a judicial inquiry into the destruction of C.I.A. videotapes that showed the harsh interrogation of two suspected operatives of Al Qaeda.
Despite the angry denunciations flying back and forth and the fizzing sense of grievance being nursed on both sides, the messy, difficult truth is that both parties can be justified, that all-or-nothing judicial war will bring destruction, and that some sort of face-saving compromise will somehow have to be patched up.
This threat is used to justify the absence of a constitution, the destruction of the judicial system, and the implementation of indefinite national service that allows the government to treat each civilian as a modern-day serf for their whole life.
"Research shows that placing children in adult institutions accentuates criminal behavior after release … subjecting children who commit minor or petty offences to judicial criminal jurisdiction was self-destruction and self-defeating," he said.
"The horrific accounts of extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and mass looting and destruction of property need to be investigated, and those responsible held to account".
He told the BBC there had been reports of "mass killings, extra-judicial killings, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, sexual violence, widespread destruction and looting of property and use of the children in conflict".
To that depressing list, I would add one more item: the destruction of North Carolina's public financing system for judicial elections.
Following the destruction of the courthouse, the county was without a judicial building for a period during the 1840s.
Paul Kokoski Hamilton, Ontario, Aug. 24, 2010 To the Editor: I am dismayed to see the judicial system support legislation forbidding funding for research involving the creation or destruction of embryos.
The Justice Department has urged a federal judge not to hold a hearing on the Central Intelligence Agency's destruction of videotaped interrogations of two suspected Al Qaeda operatives, saying a judicial inquiry "is both unnecessary and potentially disruptive".
