Then you'll need the smoking man...
Posted on 09/17/2006 2:54:53 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Rebellious Republicans, who this week broke with the White House over President George W. Bush's plan for treatment and trial of terror detainees, kept up their fight, highlighting US division over the issue of rights versus security.
Senator John McCain, who has been leading the battle to stop Bush from redefining the Geneva Conventions, said the United States needed to "hold the moral high ground," on how prisoners, Al-Qaeda or not, are treated.
"We can't lower our standards because others do," he told ABC news.
"We are not like Al-Qaeda. We're not like the bad guys. We're the nation that people look up," he said.
McCain, who was tortured for years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said that "interpreting" Article Three of the Geneva Conventions as the Bush administration has asked to do, would open US troops and agents to mistreatment around the world.
Article Three of the Geneva Conventions sets minimum standards for treatment of detainees, banning "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture."
It also bans "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment."
Bush has asked for a definition of what those limits are so they can be applied to CIA interrogators. He has not specified what "alternative" techniques the CIA has used up to now, but it has been widely reported that they include "waterboarding," or simulated drowning, sleep deprivation and extreme temperatures to coerce information from suspects.
McCain and others have said the Geneva Conventions have stood as written for more than 50 years and that if the United States "interprets" them, other countries would be free to do the same.
McCain noted that several US generals, including former secretary of state Colin Powell, have come out against the administration on the issue.
"They're very worried about American military personnel falling into the hands of enemies who will 'modify' or reinterpret the Geneva Conventions to their liking," he said.
Conservative Senator Lindsey Graham, a reserve Air Force lawyer in addition to his role as US lawmaker, has joined with McCain to fight Bush -- particularly the proposal that terror detainees could be tried, convicted and even executed based on "secret" evidence they never saw.
"I'm all for protecting classified information from being unfairly disclosed but you cannot have a trial, and call it an American trial, have a Geneva Conventions trial, where the person goes to jail and never saw what the jury saw," he said.
Graham said that if an American captured overseas were subjected to a similar trial it would be an "outrage."
"Pedophiles and terrorists, everybody we try deserves to know what they are accused of so they can defend themselves," he told CBS news. "If we do it differently now, different than we've done it for 200 years, it will come back to haunt us.
"Imagine an American going to the death chamber never having seen the evidence against him," he said. "It would be an outrage against our people and we can't legitimize that."
But Bush's national security advisor Stephen Hadley repeated the president's claim that without the definitions he is requesting, CIA interrogation of terror detainees would end.
Hadley said the administration is asking Congress to "tell us what the law is, and make it clear that the Congress of the United States supports what we're doing."
"That is not too much to ask," he told ABC. "And it is terribly important because if they will not do what we've asked them to do, there will be no program."
Please!!!?
Johnny and Lindsey need to read and heed my tagline. To most Americans, they are a couple of boneheads. McCain/Graham '08 isn't going to cut it. I will not vote for a GOP ticket like that one.
Is McCain smoking desert peyote again?
This enemy doesn't abide by the Geneva Convention. Their standards can fall any lower.
The Geneva Conventions do NOT apply to fighters who are:
1) not in uniform,
2) not fighting in organized units with officers,
3) hiding among the civilian population, OR
4) represent a nation which has not signed the Conventions.
I see. The Dems are planning to say nothing, to do the "silent" treatment of this important piece of legislation, Praying, it goes away and nobody notices.
Why Nancy Pelosi! I haven't seen you face to face in years....This really is the perfect opportunity for you to lay out what you think is important regarding the questioning of those who wish you dead.
You'd do that for a feminist rant, at the very least. You'd say...
MEN WANT US DEAD. MEN ARE EVIL. IMPRISON THEM AND BEAT THE SNOT OUT OF THE OPRESSORS OF WOMEN, FOR OVER 4,000 YEARS.
The camera jumps to Teddy, and he's having problems with his dentures, so the camera pans to Chuckie. In his most scintillating "chuckie film manner" style, he cites the problem is that the detainees are getting inadequate care, but if universal health care is passed, world wide, he'd agree to the questioning of detainees....
Uh-huh. Cowardly Democrats. All fury, signifying nothing. Do-nothings, are they.
This is why i read Vince Flynn, Tom Clancy, Brad Thor to name a few... the escapist-revenge sort - that maybe the heads of our intelligence departments might actually give the nod to black ops to 'take care' of the bad guys. To think that there has to be a freakin' vote concerning the treatment of some one who is a KNOWN terrorist....
So if you do disagree with McCain you are saying Yes we are like Al Quaeda, we are the bad guys.
Hmmm. This is called defining the terms of the argument.
Then you'll need the smoking man...
Your right, of course.
But just imagine if the our president flat out stated the law concerning the matter, that our enemy, by it's very nature, is NOT PROTECTED under Article III or any OTHER article of the GC!
And imagine if this were repeated often and at every opportunity...
(But I fantasize)
"Just to be clear:
The Geneva Conventions do NOT apply to fighters who are:
1) not in uniform,
2) not fighting in organized units with officers,
3) hiding among the civilian population, OR
4) represent a nation which has not signed the Conventions."
_______________________________________________________
Unfortunately, the guys/gals (5 Libs) in long black robes said otherwise. Hence, GW needs to have Congress change things.
Isn't that the guy from the X-Files?
Oh, boys...
I realize that the War Powers Act was design for state to state conflicts...but mustn't we be flexible.
Thank God we have not been attacked by extraterrestrials. Our Congress would have run for the cloakrooms, leaving a trail of urine.
IMHO, the Prez needs to define the enemy and ask, no, demand that we declare war on ________.
Yep...a master of black deeds.
A blatant lie. He is actually trying to specifically define the article...which is not definite in its language at all.
You make a very good point, thanks for the clarification - that Bush has not come right out officially to state that the ideology we MUST fight and gain victory over is ISLAMOFASCISM.
Sure we can John, warfare is all about getting down and dirty and winning at any expense, lest we are overcome by these barbarians and lose everything. If your nerves have been over sensitized by your own experience as a POW, then maybe you need to step away from politics and let men with less troubled minds do the work. If the terrorists KNOW they won't be treated harshly if captured, then we just make them all the bolder with our weakness.
It's really unfortunate, but there are too many people like McCain who think America is so powerful that we can win any war without getting tougher than the enemy. That's a deadly notion, but one that seems to prevail.
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