Compromised?

A compromise has been reached! That is the word coming out of Washington DC this week over a demand from the Bush Whitehouse that Congress create legislation that would allow the US Government (specifically the CIA and NSA) to continue to engage in illegal and immoral activities in the detention and interrogation of suspected so-called enemy combatants or terrorists. Indeed, if the language of this legislation passes the congress, a compromise will be reached; a compromise of American values and any claim we ever had to a sense of moral integrity.

In the face of continuing disclosures of secret prisons, “extraordinary renditions”, use of torture techniques in interrogation, and a recent Supreme Court decision declaring secret military tribunals unconstitutional, George W. Bush demanded that the congress act to write new law that would make all of these things legal – and to make it retroactive! Apparently the biggest sticking point was Bush’s demand that the congress write specific language “defining” Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions that addresses detainee treatment. Bush wanted language inserted into the bill that would list specific acts that the US would consider to be cruel and degrading. These acts would obviously exclude any techniques that had been employed by US interrogators up to this point in time. This position was challenged not only by many in the global human rights community but also by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, five former Chairs of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top legal counsels for all branches of the US Armed Services, but also by three very influential republican senators – John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and John Warner of Virginia (a former Secretary of the Navy). Bush wanted this provision as a means to shield US CIA agents from being held accountable for war crimes if victims of torture accused them of such acts. The overwhelming objection to this provision was based on the Geneva Conventions as a global treaty and the suggestion that any “redefinition” of Common Article 3 could lead to other countries using that precedent as a defense in cases where they might be guilty of torture of US service members who might be captured in future conflicts.

The compromise? According to The New York Times, ”The proposed legislation outlaws under the War Crimes Act “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions, including specific crimes such as murder, torture and rape, but also broad descriptions that might encompass a variety of crimes: maiming, extreme physical pain, trying to cause physical harm, and serious mental harm.
But the law leaves to the White House to say by executive order whether any techniques that do not rise to the level of grave breaches, but are still objectionable, would also be prohibited.
The executive order is to be published in the Federal Register, where it would be subject to review by Congress. The White House had resisted this proposal, but Senate Republicans insisted on it.
The White House said Friday that it had not yet begun to talk about what techniques the order would include.”

In other words, the Senate has created a loophole through which “The Decider” would determine additional torture techniques not specifically excluded by law. ” Senators Warner, McCain and Graham said repeatedly that they wanted the administration to have to define these techniques, so that it would have to take responsibility for them, and any public heat. Otherwise, they believed, the president or C.I.A. would justify any techniques that caused public outrage by saying, in effect, “Congress said we could.””- The “COA” clause so common from our republican “leaders” these days. Yet, although the law states that Bush "shall issue" his interpretations in published executive orders, White House spokesman Tony Snow said yesterday that administration lawyers told him that such publication -- which McCain and others have highlighted as a major White House concession -- might not be necessary.

While actually engaging in a debate on how much torture is too much torture may be the most egregious assault on our values, it is far from the only attack on our system of constitutional protections. From The Washington Post , ” Draft legislation to create a new system of military courts for terrorism suspects would allow prosecutors to introduce at future trials confessions that were obtained through "cruel, unusual, or inhumane" interrogations by the CIA or the military before 2005, but not afterward.
The legislation would also allow defense attorneys to challenge the use of hearsay information obtained through coercive interrogations in distant countries only if they can prove it is unreliable, a daunting task if the information consists of written statements from people the lawyers have no right to confront in court.” “Critics said yesterday that the bill's language abuses both of these < The U.S. War Crimes Act, and the Geneva Conventions>, as well as the U.S. Constitution. For example, it would bar detainees from challenging the legality of their detention or treatment by the CIA or the U.S. military in any court. The administration has said this controversial "court-stripping" provision is needed so that dangerous detainees could be subjected to lengthy interrogations without hope of release before military trials and could not obstruct or delay trials.
But defense lawyers, a group of retired federal judges and the American Bar Association say the provision violates due-process guarantees and Supreme Court decisions.
"Eliminating habeas is tantamount to letting hundreds of Guantanamo prisoners rot in jail," said David H. Remes, a Covington & Burlington lawyer who has represented several Yemeni detainees. "If the government does not have a valid basis for holding someone in jail, that person should have some recourse."
The bill would also bar detainees from citing the Geneva Conventions -- which the United States ratified in 1949 -- "as a source of rights" in any U.S. court, including the military panels or "commissions" established by the new law.”

So here we have it; a bill before the congress that would allow The Decider and Dr. Evil to define what torture is legal and what is not; a bill that officially places the United States on the same level as any tyrannical regime in the world that places the “security of the state” over the dignity of the individual; a bill that compromises the very moral authority that we as a nation claim.

Do you know where your Member of Congress and your senators stand on this legislation? Please let them know how you feel.


Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue