George W. Bush is living up to the title bestowed upon him by Hugo Chavez.
Just like a "World Dictator," he reserves for himself the right to violate the Geneva Conventions. Much like restrictions on weapons of mass destruction, the Geneva Conventions are for all those little insignificant countries, aka, the rest of world. Cause The Empire is special and if you don't like it, we'll torture you. Or maybe we'll bomb you back into the stone age.
The Torture 'Compromise' permits George W. Bush to legalize torture.
Or, in Josh Marshall's words: "The senate, in this dance, becomes the United States 'rendering' prisoners to the executive for illicit torture much as the US renders folks to Syria and Egypt we when really want them to get the treatment."
Why did the three "moderate" Republican senators give up the fight against torture? Perhaps the senators who made such a show of standing up against torture were tortured into submission.
The Torture 'Compromise' permits "the U.S. to be first nation to authorize violations" of the Geneva Conventions.
The editorial boards of both the New York Times and the Washington Post have harsh words to say about this most recent failure of Congress to stand up to the Pro Torture pResident.
If the newspaper editorial boards change their minds tomorrow, I guess we'll know why.
New York Times: A Bad Bargain
Here is a way to measure how seriously President Bush was willing to compromise on the military tribunals bill: Less than an hour after an agreement was announced yesterday with three leading Republican senators, the White House was already laying a path to wiggle out of its one real concession.
About the only thing that Senators John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham had to show for their defiance was Mr. Bush’s agreement to drop his insistence on allowing prosecutors of suspected terrorists to introduce classified evidence kept secret from the defendant...
.....The Democrats have largely stood silent and allowed the trio of Republicans to do the lifting. It’s time for them to either try to fix this bill or delay it until after the election. The American people expect their leaders to clean up this mess without endangering U.S. troops, eviscerating American standards of justice, or further harming the nation’s severely damaged reputation.
Washington Post: The Abuse Can Continue
Senators won't authorize torture, but they won't prevent it, either.
But the senators who have fought to rein in the administration's excesses — led by Sens. McCain, Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.) — failed to break Mr. Bush's commitment to "alternative" methods that virtually every senior officer of the U.S. military regards as unreliable, counterproductive and dangerous for Americans who may be captured by hostile governments.
Mr. Bush wanted Congress to formally approve these practices and to declare them consistent with the Geneva Conventions. It will not. But it will not stop him either, if the legislation is passed in the form agreed on yesterday. Mr. Bush will go down in history for his embrace of torture and bear responsibility for the enormous damage that has caused.
Unless there is a huge public outcry:
"When our children, God, our poor children, write essays in praise of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, they will be writing in praise of torture."
Surely, the American public will not stand for this. Please click on the Torture ad by AmnestyUSA (scroll up) over in the sidebar, and send an urgent plea for sanity to Congress! Frankly, I'm not all that hopeful that it will do any good. But I did it. I haven't given up, yet.
Torture Bush Geneva Conventions McCain Empire Republicans Politics News Torture Compromise
