Senate Tries to Put Pandora Back in the Box

The rats are leaving the sinking ship of state.

Worried about linking themselves too closely to a president Americans increasingly recognise is incompetent and delusional (welcome to reality, folks--it ain't comfy, but it's home), GOP Senators have passed an amendment to a $400 billion military spending that would bill outlaw the abuse of prisoners. It still needs the approval of the House before it can become law.

The amendment, sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R., AZ), also requires GIs to refer to the Army Field Manual when interrogating prisoners.

The irony here is that we have all the limitations on power and safeguards against abuse that we need, without this amendment. They are the Constitution of the United States (and particularly the Bill of Rights), the Geneva Conventions, and the Army Field Manual. The Congress of the United States, who are now, like Dr. Frankenstein, feverishly trying to capture the monster they've unleashed on an unsuspecting world, created this monster in the first place!!!

On February 7, 2002, in the face of opposition from his own State Department, Bush issued a directive demanding that our military “treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.” This directive was framed, in part, from the perspective of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who in January of 2002 wrote, as counsel to the President, that the war on terrorism "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

Translation: We are probably not going to treat detainees humanely if we think they are terrorists.

Of course, the President had already determined that Taliban and Al Qa'ida members were not to be considered prisoners of war, and that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to Al Qa'ida. And, of course, there seemed to be an assumption that everyone we captured was, ipso facto, a terrorist. Not a terror suspect, but a terrorist.

It is important to note that--even though the reporting on this point has been next to invisible--it was not "a few bad apples" who are responsible for US torture of prisoners of war. In a little noted letter to the President last week, more than a dozen high-ranking military officers noted that “It is now apparent that the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere took place in part because our men and women in uniform were given ambiguous instructions, which in some cases authorized treatment that went beyond what was allowed by the Army Field Manual.”

Translation: They were following orders.

Bottom Line: Don't give Congress too much credit for this. Especially the GOP.