Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Friday, September 22, 2006
Tortured Agreement UPDATED
Slate's TP has a good summary of the news coverage of yesterday's Republican coup on torture. A key section is this:
And by focusing solely on the provisions over which the two sides disagreed, the major papers overlook potentially troubling areas of GOP agreement.
Just like was predicted, focus on the "compromise" and "statesmanship" shown by the negotiating parties (not including any Democrats) and hail the protection of rights! Oh, and by the way, civilian torturers gain immunity from civil prosecution along the way.

All in all, the deal does just what was expected. It's all optics for McCain and nothing changes in terms of Bush torturing subjects. And now, given this publicity, if the Democrats oppose the bill when it comes to the floor, they more easily appear to be "obstructionists in the waronterra!" And we all know how they'll handle that.

The only thing left will be a challenge of the new "law" in the Supreme Court .... again. I put the odds of the Supreme Court overruling Bush at about 50/50.

This really says it all:
Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's Washington office released this statement : "This is a compromise of America's commitment to the rule of law. The proposal would make the core protections of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions irrelevant and unenforceable. It deliberately provides a 'get-out-of-jail-free card' to the administration's top torture officials, and backdates that card nine years. These are tactics expected of repressive regimes, not the American government.

"Also under the proposal, the president would have the authority to declare what is -- and what is not -- a grave breach of the War Crimes Act, making the president his own judge and jury. This provision would give him unilateral authority to declare certain torture and abuse legal and sound. In a telling move, during a call with reporters today, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley would not even answer a question about whether waterboarding would be permitted under the agreement."
John McCain deserves the emnity of all Americans. Talk about a hypocrite sell-out.

UPDATE: If you want to support Carl Levin's amendment to try and save some sort of habeus in the torture bill, go here.
Written at 9:41 AM by Greyhair.
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