This week, the Senate voted 90-9 to pass John McCain's SA1977 officially codifying anti-torture rules that have been a part of military code for decades. And your president -- for the first time ever -- has threatened to veto the $440 billion spending bill to which the amendment is attached.
First, the nine senators who want torture to continue:
Allard (R-CO)
Bond (R-MO)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Stevens (R-AK)
Shame on all of these nine. Everyone -- in fact, a vast majority of the Senate -- agrees that torture breeds new generations of terrorists, especially if the detainee is innocent and eventually freed. The amendment was endorsed by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs John Shalikashvili.
The same day the amendment was passed, Scott McClellan had this to say in his daily press briefing:
Q Let me ask one other question. Why does the President oppose Senator McCain's legislation to establish standards for interrogation of terrorists?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, there are already laws on the books, and so I think part of this, if you go back and look at the statement of administration policy that we put out, it would be unnecessary and duplicative. And it would limit the President's ability as Commander-in-Chief to effectively carry out the war on terrorism.
Q And will the President veto Senator McCain's legislation?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we put out the statement of administration policy, which stated our concerns about that and stated -- let me specifically refer you to it -- our views when it came to if those amendments were part of the final legislation. It said, if it's presented, then there would be a recommendation of a veto, I believe.
First, the initial question was misleading. Not all detainees are terrorists. They're accused terrorists, many of whom could be your neighbor and innocent of any charges.
Second, McClellan's response is -- what's the word -- stupid. If there are rules already on the books (he's referring to military code) then how would the amendment restrict the "President's ability as Commander-in-Chief to effectively carry out the war on terrorism"? If it's already a rule and the president doesn't want to limit his own power in the war on terrorism, isn't that a signal that the White House is admitting that it's violating that rule and engaging in cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees -- by order of the president?
In other words, torture hasn't been the result of "a few bad apples" but rather the result of expressed orders from the president himself. So he's not only torturing detainees, but he's also lying about it to everyone including his base and supporters in Congress.
Bush's excuse for vetoing the bill is that it's "unnecessary." That's never stopped him before. He signed the Terri Schiavo bill. He signed that infamous pork spending bill which included $231 million for a bridge to nowhere. He signed a bill which allowed the sanitizing of DVDs. I would bet that Bush has no idea what the acronym "DVD" stands for (digital versatile disc). For crying out loud, Bush signed a bill creating the world's largest public shooting range!
But the bipartisan, overwhelmingly supported anti-torture amendment is unnecessary.
On Thursday, the president had some strong words for "tyrants and dictators" who refuse to listen and act upon the will of the people.
He said, "But that's the essence of democracy . . . answering to the will of the people." What more evidence of the will of the American people does he require? 90 senators, all representatives of the people, voted to restrict detainee torture. Yet your president wants to veto that bill. Bush is even defying the will of his own allies and base on this issue -- a base he desperately needs right now for a litany of purposes.
He continued by saying, "[Terrorists and tyrants are] unconstrained by any notion of our common humanity, or by the rules of warfare." The rules of warfare -- rules which this very same leader is aiming to veto. I made this point in my last article but it's worth repeating: would this not make Bush a terrorist and tyrant by his own definition?
The image above is one I discovered this past Winter. It's a propaganda poster created by the government in 1942. Does the painting look eerily familiar?
"These so-called ill-treatments and this torturing... were not, as assumed, inflicted methodically, but were excesses committed by individual leaders, subleaders, and men who laid violent hands on internees... It is obvious that there were elements among them who would ill-treat internees, but this ill-treatment was never tolerated." Nazi Auschwitz Kommandant Rudolf Hoess during the Nuremberg Trails