-
Play CBS Video
Video
Bush-Senate Terrorism Deal
The White House and key Republican senators have been at odds over CIA interrogations and military trials for terror suspects. Sharyl Attkisson reports on the compromise.
-
Video
Terror Bill Deal Reached
Senate Republicans announced an agreement with the Bush administration over the treatment of terror suspects. Jim Axelrod and Sharyl Attkisson discuss how the impasse ended.
-
Photo
(CBS/AP)
-
Who's Who
Terror Transfer
A glimpse at the 14 suspected terrorists transferred from CIA custody to Guantanamo Bay.
-
Interactive
America On Guard
The Homeland Security Department, the terror alert system, preparedness quiz and more.
Democrats chose to outsource their policy on military tribunals to John McCain. And McCain did what he's done best the last year: capitulate to Bush.
"Senators Snatch Defeat From Jaws of Victory: U.S. to be First Nation to Authorize Violations of Geneva," Georgetown University law professor Marty Lederman writes of the so-called "compromise" between Senators McCain/Graham/Warner and President Bush.
Says Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office:
"The proposal would make the core protections of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions irrelevant and unenforceable. It deliberately provides a 'get out of jail free card' to the administration's top torture officials, and backdates that card nine years.Adds the Washington Post editorial page:
"Also under the proposal, the president would have the authority to declare what is — and what is not — a grave breach of the War Crimes Act, making the president his own judge and jury. This provision would give him unilateral authority to declare certain torture and abuse legal and sound. In a telling move, during a call with reporters today, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley would not even answer a question about whether waterboarding would be permitted under the agreement.
"The agreement would also violate time-honored American due process standards by permitting the use of evidence coerced through cruel and abusive treatment. We urge lawmakers to stand firm in their commitment to American values and reject this charade of a compromise."
"In effect, the agreement means that U.S. violations of international human rights law can continue as long as Mr. Bush is president, with Congress's tacit assent."In the end, McCain got loads of admiring press coverage. And Bush got almost everything he wanted.
Ari Berman, based in Washington, D.C., is a contributing writer for The Nation, a contributor to The Notion and a Puffin Foundation writing fellow at The Nation Institute.
By Ari Berman
Reprinted with permission from The Nation.
| If you like this article, check out www.thenation.com for more investigative reports, timely editorials and incisive columns |




Some hero!
All the old World WarII movies showed us how horribly evil the Japanese and Germans were because they TORTURED enemy soldiers.We Americans didn't do that--period. No sleezy, hypocritical exceptions. Senator McCain and Co., you should be very, very ashamed.
Instead, he rolls over for the GOP.
Very sad.
http://www.churchofreality.org/wisdom/current_event_edicts/
What is the different between our torture camps and Nazi concentration camps? In time there will be no difference. McCain is a total wimp.
So the GOP has to pull the only card they have left, "terror". If they can't show unity on "terror", then they know they'll lose big in the November elections.
Americans are dying in various countries and I hope in the up coming elections that "we the people" vote new blood into Congress. Those who can unite our country, not divide us. Those who make intelligent decisions based on facts not assumptions. Leaders who are willing to put their heads together and help solve the numerous problems Americans face today.
We cannot keep the status quo. Americans need to vote with their minds and not their emotions so Congress can be made up of leaders that will do the same. Get centered, and then vote smart.
So the GOP has to pull the only card they have left, "terror". If they can't show unity on "terror", then they know they'll lose big in the November elections.
Americans are dying in various countries and I hope in the up coming elections that "we the people" vote new blood into Congress. Those who can unite our country, not divide us. Those who make intelligent decisions based on facts not assumptions. Leaders who are willing to put their heads together and help solve the numerous problems Americans face today.
We cannot keep the status quo. Americans need to vote with their minds and not their emotions so Congress can be made up of leaders that will do the same. Get centered, and then vote smart.
Win one before you claim to know what America wants.
We should not be voting to "Win".
We should vote to have our government made of leaders with intelligence, competence, and that proactively engage in creating understanding and compromise.
Not bullies who just want to win.
Dude, you are not paying attention. There are only two names on the ballot for most positions. One of those names is recognized by the voter, that is the incumbent. Since they were little kids, they were taught by 2,000 repetitions that when given a multiple choice, mark the anser you recognize. This is the central theme of all public education - here is a list of things, mark the one you recognize.
So the voters go into the booth, and press the button next to the name they recognize. The only way an incumbent can lose is if his opponent has the name of someone who used to be elected, or is famous somehow.
Millions and millions of people can be informed, intelligent voters, but the other millions and millions who think it is another multiple choice test cancle your vote. Remember that most Americans, unlike news wonks like us (seeing that you are reading news on the Internet) don't even know what Congress is, what its duties are, what is the house or the senate, or what the people do whom they elect, other than the president whom they vaguely believe will be some kind of king.
95% of incumbents are re-elected in the last few elections. They will continue to be, until we have ballot reform, which means all candidates are write-in. Then, you would have to at least remember the name of the person you are voting for.
You are right on all your points:
1. Torture must be sent packing back to the Middle Ages
2. We are being lied to at a scale unimaginable even in the most corrupt administrations of the past, e.g., Ulysses S. Grant and Warren G. Harding
3. On being classified as terrorists, we should all be aware that PRIVATE COMPANIES will be taking over the role of enforcement troops in the next "emergency" and that KBR (Halliburton) has been paid our money to refurbish Concentration Camps, over 800 in this country, as yet empty and unused (see http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/FEMA-Concentration-Camps3sep04.htm )
A couple of spelling errors, though, I should mention: Domination rather than Dominantion, and (you have a good ear) what you heard as "at hear" is actually the Latin word "adhere", [adhaero, adhaeri, adhaesum] where we get "adherent" and "adhesive", to cleave or stick to a thing. [ http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3D%23771 ]
typical Reich Wing comment: only slander, no specifics: "Well now that's priceless ... someone quoting Hugo Chavez talking about danger from the government. The left has gone nuts."
Every specific point made by Chavez in his speech at the UN is based on facts (well known to the informed, not to everybody, more's the pity). Thanks to the still-not-yet-crippled Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), as attorney Eva Golinger says at the top of her website [ http://www.venezuelafoia.info/english.html ]
THE PROOF IS IN THE DOCUMENTS: THE CIA WAS INVOLVED IN THE COUP AGAINST VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT CHAVEZ.
The CIA was forced (by that US law that the Bush Crime Family is trying desperately to sabotage) to turn over these self-incriminating documents.
I suggest you surf over there and get someone to read them to you. Don't try it yourself: too many big words -- you'll just get discouraged.
But for those who would like to study the speech in detail, I have prepared a dual language version at http://home.gwi.net/~jscarp/ChavezUN.htm -- the audio in Spanish is also there, but I recommend you right-click the speaker icon and choose Save As..., then play it in your default media player.
-
by ronniehm
September 24, 2006 1:19 PM PDT
- OK Hugo, whatever you say.
-
Reply to this comment
-
See all 24 Comments