The news is reporting that the White House wants to alter a bill restricting cruel treatment of detainees so that it doesn’t apply to the CIA. Apparently VP Cheny took this proposal to Sen McCain personally. Not making any comment on the proposal one way or the other, but how exactly do you take that kind of proposal to a person who was held prisoner of war? I’m trying to imagine how anyone would go about explaining that to a person who was a POW and trying to convince them to buy off on it. Talk about awkward.
I think it is quite appropriate for the White House to discuss this issue with Sen. McCain. Who is better suited in Congress than he to know the difference between legitimate interrogation techniques designed to put the subject in a better position to talk and torture? The main criticism of Abu Ghraib and Gitmo is that our interviewers did not have clear guidelines. This bill is designed to give them those guidelines. If the White House wants to make changes to the bill, they need to make their case to McCain because he is the one that most in the Senate will look to to approve or disapprove.
"I think it is quite appropriate for the White House to discuss this issue with Sen. McCain. "
I’m not saying it’s inappropriate, I’m asking how you go about asking a former POW to sign off on a bill where you’re asking for anti-cruelty measures to not apply to the CIA. It must be a tough sell.
VP: " Hey John, I know you spent a long time in captivity being treated inhumanely and tortured, and that must have sucked, and we’d like you to sign off on this bill, but we want to word it such that the CIA could still be exempt from controls and potentially torture people too…What do you say?"
Sen McCain: " Ummm, not so much."
While the anti cruelty provisions would not apply, wouldnt the Geneva Convention still apply?
“While the anti cruelty provisions would not apply, wouldnt the Geneva Convention still apply?”
Geneva conventions only apply to certain groups of people in certain situations. Same with the UN Conventions against torture.
It may be a tough sell, but without McCain on board, they don’t have a chance of convincing enough other senators to go along. So–they don’t really have a choice in this case. I’m not commenting on the merits or demerits of the WH case, only that if they are proposing something, they must have some reason to do so, and , they must convince McCain that the benefit of their proposal outweighs the negative aspects. I’m sure the WH is looking at it from the aspect of preventing terrorist attacks by getting information quickly out of captured terrorists. McCain is probably looking at it from the aspect of preventing our servicemen from getting retaliatory treatment if captured. Both are legitimate and worthy goals, but the question is–which one best serves the overall interests of the country?
I would be surprised if McCain goes along with it.
How is “cruel” defined according the bill, commodore?
I think it’s not a particularly great thing to be enacting law that explicitly allows cruel treatment, and I don’t know why one particular agency should be allowed to engage in cruel treatment.
I would be surprised if McCain goes along with it.
How is “cruel” defined according the bill, commodore?
I think it’s not a particularly great thing to be enacting law that explicitly allows cruel treatment, and I don’t know why one particular agency should be allowed to engage in cruel treatment.
(from that rag, nytimes.com)
Mr. McCain rejected the proposed exemption, which stated that the measure “shall not apply with respect to clandestine counterterrorism operations conducted abroad, with respect to terrorists who are not citizens of the United States, that are carried out by an element of the United States government other than the Department of Defense and are consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States and treaties to which the United States is a party, if the president determines that such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attack.” <<
I read that as saying “nothing applies to cases where the President says they don’t apply, therefore they can do whatever the hell they want to.” By referring to the undefined term “terrorists”, this wording ensures that the persons aren’t covered by any law, treaty or the Constitution. Justice O’Connor mentioned that the President doesn’t have a blank check to do whatever he wants, but this is such an attempt to do so.
Frist, by the way, apparently is on the President’s side in this argument, bless his diagnosis-at-a-distance heart.
That is too funny. Can you imagine if some other country did this? Say, oh I don’t know, Iran. Iran has some special group “outside” the government and they pass a bill saying they can anti-cruelty laws don’t apply to them. How well would that go over?
I doubt such a law would be passed by a country like that since I have a feeling that common practice by some countries, but come on. That is BS.
Passing over the fact that studies done on torture have found that any information obtained by such means is mostly worthless because the person being tortured will say anything to get the pain to stop, what does this say about our country? Aren’t we the good guys? Aren’t we better than the animals that we are fighting? How are we better than these scum if we sink to their level. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
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