John McCain, decorated military veteran and prisoner of war camp survivor, has taken a stand which, if it continues to fruition, will see him abandoning his brothers-in-arms and making it practically impossible for U.S. Armed Forces to gather any information from captured terrorists in the War on Terror.
The disagreement centers mainly on how to square the CIA’s techniques with the Geneva Conventions, which say wartime detainees must be “treated humanely.” The administration bill says the United States complies with the conventions as long as interrogators abide by a 2005 law barring “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” treatment of captives.
McCain and his chief Republican allies on the Senate committee, Chairman John W. Warner (Va.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), say that this requirement is too narrow and that the United States should not try to limit its obligations under the Geneva Conventions. Instead, they want CIA officers to abide by the common understanding of the treaty’s meaning, including a ban on “outrages upon personal dignity.”
Bush’s bill would also allow alleged enemy combatants to be convicted by military commissions relying on classified information not shared with the suspects. The McCain-backed measure would make the exclusion of classified information more difficult, and it states in general terms that defendants have the right to examine and respond to any evidence directly related to guilt or innocence.
McCain and his cohorts want terrorists to be treated like other battlefield combatants (soldiers who wear uniforms and abide by the terms of the Geneva conventions), even though the terrorists, under the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, are categorized as “war criminals.” Even though the terrorists themselves do not abide by the terms of the Geneva Conventions.
Moments after the Armed Services Committee voted 15 to 9 to endorse McCain’s alternative bill, the Arizona senator lashed out at CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, who had also lobbied lawmakers personally.
McCain told reporters that Hayden wants Congress to give the CIA a virtually free hand to treat detainees as it wishes so that he and his agents will be immunized against accusations of unlawful conduct. “He’s trying to protect his reputation at the risk of America’s reputation,” McCain said. The senator noted that other nations would be more likely to abuse U.S. captives if Americans appeared to sanction such conduct.
Hey, Senator McCain: Why don’t you tell Privates Thomas Tucker and Kristian Menchaca about how humanely they’ll be treated if we abide by the terms of your proposal? Oh, yeah, you can’t:
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, it’s a grim end to the search for those two missing soldiers — evidence now that they were brutally murdered and then their bodies booby-trapped to try to take the lives of those who came to recover them.
The bodies were found last night, just three days after they were abducted in an attack while they were guarding the bridge in Yusufiyah. The bodies were found along a road. Local Iraqis spotted the bodies, tipped the U.S. military off, along with a warning that the remains could be booby-trapped.
Military sources could not say exactly how and when Private Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker died, but they — they suffered what was described as significant trauma, so much so that DNA — DNA tests will be required to make the final identification.
Recovery took nearly 12 hours, because the bodies had been booby- trapped with — rigged with explosives, and IEDs had been planted along the path, the route, that the recovery team would taken to get to the bodies.
Senator McCain, why do you expect reasonable outcomes from unreasonable people? The enemy we fight in this War on Terror is not a standing army of professional soldiers who guide their actions by the rules of civilized warfare. The enemy we fight are faceless cowards, whipped into a religious killing frenzy since birth and hell-bent on destroying free civilizations around the world by hiding among the civilians of their region and purposely killing civilians, including women and children, until the rest of the world either converts to their beliefs or dies. To expect anything approaching reason from them is to guarantee our defeat.
Senator McCain, however, isn’t concerned with such trivial matters. He’s more worried about other, more important things:
John McCain, the Republican frontrunner for the 2008 presidential election, has dramatically raised the stakes in a fight with the White House over interrogation techniques permitted for use at secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons by saying he is unwilling to back down on the issue even if it ruins his chance of becoming president.
After supporting this ticket to defeat, Senator McCain, the Presidency is the last thing you need to worry about.
Whether they meant to or not, John McCain and his cohorts have now crossed over into the land of defeatism and anti-Americanism with the entire Democrat Party. They now stand shoulder to shoulder with people like Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean, charter members of the “Blame America for Everything” club and architects of the fall of freedom.
Somehow, Senator, I expected better from you.
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