JAG Memos on DoD Interrogation Tactics Released

Marty Lederman has this excellent analysis and the full text of the finally released JAG memos at Balkinization. What do the memos represent? The military lawyers on the United States vigourously objected to analysis by the Dept of Justice that the President is not bound by the Geneva Conventions — or domestic criminal statutes — when it comes to interrogation techniques against enemy combattants being held outside the United States:

The JAGs warned that if DoD embraced this clever strategy, in which there’s a technical legal justification for ignoring every presumed legal restriction, “the American people will find we have missed the forest for the trees by condoning practices that, while technically legal, are inconsistent with our most fundamental values,” which would “affect our ability to prosecute the Global War on Terrorism.”