By RJ Schinner, 9/22/06
“I had a single test for the pending legislation, and
that’s this: Would the CIA operators tell me whether they could go forward with
the program, that is a program to question detainees to be able to get information
to protect the American people. I’m pleased to say that this agreement
preserves the most single — most potent tool we have in protecting America
and foiling terrorist attacks, and that is the CIA program to question the
world’s most dangerous terrorists and to get their secrets.”-President Bush on
Thursday, 9/21 after the compromise bill was released
It’s happened again.
An outrageous crime of the Bush regime was exposed, angering people
around the world, a handful of people in Congress made a brief show of
opposition, and then when all is said and done the very outrage is ratified
into law through compromise and strong-arming, with at most some minor
modifications.
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Speaking about getting clarification on the meaning of the Geneva Conventions, Dan Barlett, White House Counselor to the President, said “We proposed a more direct approach to bringing clarification. This one is more of the scenic route, but it gets us there.”     YOUR GOVERNMENT is openly torturing people, and justifying it. |
It started in June when the Supreme Court ruled that the
secretive military tribunals Bush had in store for Guantanamo detainees were unconstitutional. Bush’s military tribunals were to be
conducted without oversight, allow evidence obtained through torture, and
convict detainees with hearsay and “classified evidence” they would
not be able to see. Since then, the Bush
administration has worked to strong-arm Congress into ratifying its military
tribunals into law. When McCain, Graham,
and Warner, three ardently pro-war Republican Senators, put up opposition to
Bush’s proposed legislation, some people got a glimmer of hope that Bush’s
plans would be stopped by people in his own party. Whether or not you want to admit it, those
hopes were dashed against the rocks in a deal worked out at Dick Cheney’s office
Thursday.
The compromise bill for trying “enemy combatants”
agreed upon by the Bush administration and the three “opposition”
Senators will:
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Allow evidence obtained through coercion (a nicer word for
torture) to be used if the judge in the trial decides it’s reliable or
relevant.
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Give torturers a “get out of jail free” card by
immunizing interrogators from prosecution for torture carried out before the
new legislation is passed.
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While McCain claims that “the integrity and letter and
spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved”, the compromise
prevents detainees from using the Geneva Conventions to challenge their
detention or seek civil damages for being tortured.
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With the exception of a few “grave breaches”,
allows the president to decide what is considered a violation of the Geneva
Conventions.
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Instead of allowing secret evidence to be used in court
which the defendant cannot see, will make the prosecution provide redacted or
summary version of that evidence to the defense.
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Maintains the president’s ability to declare anyone an
“enemy combatant” and hold them without charges indefinitely.
And while this compromise is bad enough as is, the Bush
administration and some Republicans in Congress are already working to make it
worse. Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of
the House Armed Services Committee (which had earlier passed through Bush’s
proposal) is now pushing to change the legislation to allow the use of secret
evidence. And given that much of the law
is up to the president’s interpretation, Bush will have the power to do what he
wants with the lives and rights of detainees – maybe he’ll even attach a
signing statement nullifying the whole thing.
And while torture and kangaroo trials have been compromised
into law, what have the Democrats been
saying about it? Click here to listen.
So after all the
hullabaloo, the CIA will continue torturing and get away with it, and the victims
will be held indefinitely on the President’s say-so until finally being shoved
through a sham trial which denies them the most basic of legal rights.
All this illustrates
once again that bringing to a halt the torture, the secret detentions, the
denial of basic legal rights, and all the horrors this regime is reigning down
on the world will not be stopped through the official political channels. Moreover, if the world sees the whole
government legislating torture and silence from the American people, they will
see a nation of torturers. But to remain
silent while war crimes are not only committed but openly legislated in Senate
offices is to be complicit. The world
needs to see something different: uncompromising opposition manifested in
massive protest on the streets October 5 all across the country.