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To GET INTELLIGENCE TO PREVENT THE MURDER OF INNOCENT PEOPLE, that's why. You don't think people interrogate the terrorists, just to pass the time, do you?!
Of course, there's that pesky problem that torture doesn't yield reliable intelligence. And oddly enough, this inverse relationship between torture and useful information has been well known for about 60 years now. So it seems that torture is in need of some other justification.
People throw around the word "torture".
But this amendment prohibits "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment "
How do you define degrading? Anything the terrorists object to, such as being guarded by female guards, as someone pointed out.
And why do you think we should give foreign terrorists in foreign lands the same and more rights than our citizens have? You are setting up our soldiers everywhere to be prosecuted, if they hurt a hair on the head of a darling terrorist, even if thousands of innocent lives are at stake.
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S.AMDT.1977
Amends: H.R.2863
Sponsor: Sen McCain, John [AZ]
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r109:1:./temp/~r109CQR8wS:e911694:
TEXT OF AMENDMENTS -- (Senate - October 03, 2005)
(a) In General.--No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
(b) Construction.--Nothing in this section shall be construed to impose any geographical limitation on the applicability of the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment under this section.
(c) Limitation on Supersedure.--The provisions of this section shall not be superseded, except by a provision of law enacted after the date of the enactment of this Act which specifically repeals, modifies, or supersedes the provisions of this section.
(d) Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Defined.--In this section, the term ``cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment'' means the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as defined in the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984.