Wednesday, April 18, 2007

What's he up to?

Why is George W. Bush making a bunch of amendments to courts-martial procedures (which as Commander-in-Chief he can do), the bulk of which seem to be focused on adding a new crime of killing an unborn child, where --

the term "unborn child" means a child in utero, and the term "child in utero" or "child who is in utero" means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.

There are exemptions to cover medically necessary procedures including abortion, but with this crowd one always wonders what the sub-text is. This order, which may well just be intended to set up a stunt announcement regarding his supposed protection of unborn life in the military, comes on a day when 183 members of the species homo sapiens were blown to bits in Iraq.

UPDATE 25 APRIL: A legal source tells us that the amendments are required by Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, also called "Laci and Conner's Law" (108th Congress, HR 1997, signed on April Fool's Day). The strange thing is, this law's section 3 made provisions for the military justice system and yet these were only just inserted into courts-martial procedures 3 years later. Bush has made at least 2 alterations to courts-martial procedures since there (here, here). Did they forget?

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