Posted on 12/15/2005 8:43:20 AM PST by areafiftyone
WASHINGTON (AP) The White House has agreed to accept Sen. John McCain's proposal to ban cruel treatment of terrorism detainees, congressional officials said.
Yahoo E-Mail Alert. Looking for whole story.
Well, after we cleared him he wasn't a suspect anymore, right? I'd love to hear you try to justify how he was treated after we figured out that he wasn't who we thought he was when we picked him up.
I know some folks here have extreme disdain for quaint little niceties like due process, but it is that kind of situation that it is made for. I'm sure you'd admit that sometimes we get it wrong - wrong guy, wrong name, wrong house, etc. So when we pick up a guy BY MISTAKE, who is not who we think he is, it is helpful if there is some kind of check so that somebody can figure that out before we send him off to Egypt to be tortured. And it'd be a bit more consistent with WHAT WE ARE ALL ABOUT if, when we do figure it out, we do a little more to correct our error than drop the guy in the middle of nowhere in Macedonia with no papers or money or anything.
But I'm thinking you aren't real concerned with what we are supposed to be about, unless it is in that day's talking points.
The White House finally accepted McCain's language
The way the article you posted is written, it sounds like there was no agreement, just McCain getting whatever he wanted, as usual. I wonder what McCain was threatening behind the scenes to get his way?
Can you state what they are? I doubt it.
Then you'd have us acting like the Islamofascists you want to kill.
As I said on another thread: Thanks to this news, I'll be spending tonight either getting drunk & hurling over the toilet or both.
What the hell is Bush doing? He clearly doesn't have his finger on the pulse of the American people. He should have drawn swords over this one. I've never been so pissed off at our President. Mimicking Clinton's triangulation tactics is not only transparent, but he's just ordered up a death wish for the GOP. I hope he thinks its worth it and can live with his irresponsible actions.
How funny that you should post that with those comments which express exactly my reaction. One man, I thought to myself, is truly presidential, and the other clearly is not. The one that isn't tried to steal the limelight by talking longer than the one that is. McCain, who can't believe HE is not the president, and who hates the DOD and Rummy with a passion and would harm it and him even in a time of war, thinks he did something for himself today. I think he did too, but not what he thinks he did.
A mere threat that the congressional votes appeared to be there to override any veto by the President?
He didn't have much of a choice.
There is no way his veto would have been upheld.
All Bush wanted was a CIA exemption, and no doubt the CIA can get around this somehow. They are the CIA.
I am not freaking out about this.
Folks, keep in mind it would have been much worse if the president just let Congress override his veto of McCain's bill. That would have sent a signal that the WH is losing its power.
By compromising on the issue, the WH is still at the wheel here and "okaying" the bill.
Anybody who thinks this bill passing means the CIA will stop torturing when it is necessary really needs to buy a clue. The CIA conducts operations in secret and no doubt will continue to torture in the rare time when it is needed.
Where will the "trial" be held?
What "law" will said "trial" be subject to?
Considering that the McCain amendment references this, be afraid, VERY AFRAID.
The bill the WH agreed to establishes not one new limit on the CIA or any other agency. It just means we agree to follow the laws against torture that already exist.
True enough, but, a veto now will at least support granting executive clemency (the last resort of the Executive branch's Constitutional checks and balances) with regards to anyone charged with violating this issue within the next couple of years.
There is apparently very little this guy won't cave on.
But then that's the way of the GOP Big Tent and its RINOs, liberals and moderates.
"Then you'd have us acting like the Islamofascists you want to kill."
Don't be silly. I don't go around blowing up women and children and cutting off the heads of innocents. Such vermin need exterminating not pampering.
That is true. It will be harder for Bush to grant clemency if anybody is charged during his remaining years.
if this passes - that definition will be whatever the ACLU can get a federal judge to say it is.
they will "get around this" by using more foreign governments, killing more of these people rather then even bothering to capture them, or capturing them and interrogating them vigourosly for short period of times and then killing them to "close the books" before some federal judge can issue a habeas order for the detainee.
the white house lost on this one, there is no way to spin this any other way - this is a political defeat. the congress is not capable of producing any real leaders, just cowards, an occasional exception like Duncan Hunter and Curt Weldon. Had someone prominent, like Senator Allen, moved to the right of McCain on this (on the CIA exemption at least) and given him some pause that is was going to be a primary issue, the situation might have been different.
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