The battle over the detainee bill and the proposed clarification of common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions has ended with a whimper----the whimper of many Democrats who have apparently been simultaneously stricken with laryngitis.
The grand controversy and noble rebellion of the brave renegade senators didn't come out exactly as I expected. For one thing, I thought it would last longer and involve more---as in any---Democrats.
The CIA director seems happy, which is nice for the CIA: Not so much for those of us who value due process and the principles on which this country was founded. .
[quote begins from September 21 New York Times Article by Kate Zernike, Top Republicans Reach Accord on Detainee Bill]
Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, issued a statement to employees, saying, “If this language becomes law, the Congress will have given us the clarity and the support that we need to move forward with a detention and interrogation program that allows us to continue to defend the homeland, attack Al Qaeda and protect American and allied lives.”
[quote ends]
Don't get me wrong; I definitely want the CIA and the government generally to do all of those things. I want to be protected and I want American troops to be protected. And I totally supported McCain, Graham (!), Warner, and Powell in their opposition to the Administration's proposed "clarification" of the Geneva Conventions.
Here's what the article says:
[quote begins from September 21 New York Times Article, Top Republicans Reach Accord on Detainee Bill]
Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, said: “We proposed a more direct approach to bringing clarification. This one is more of the scenic route, but it gets us there.”
The agreement says the executive branch is responsible for upholding the nations’ commitment to the Geneva Conventions, leaving it to the president to establish through executive rule any violations for the handling of terrorism suspects that fall short of a “grave breach.” Significantly, Senate aides said, those rules would have to be published in the Federal Register.
The agreement provides several pages describing “grave breaches” that would not be allowed, starting with torture and including other forms of assault and mental stress. But it does not lay out specific interrogation techniques that would be prohibited.
The adjustment to the War Crimes Act, “will put the C.I.A. on notice of what they can and can’t do,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who, along with Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, joined Mr. McCain in leading resistance to the White House approach. “It would take off the table things that are not within American values.”
Asked about one of the most controversial interrogation techniques, a simulated drowning known as water-boarding, Mr. Graham said, “It is a technique that we need to let the world know we are no longer engaging in.”
[quote ends (links in original)]
See, I didn't know we were engaging in it before. I heard people say that we were, but I refused to believe it. It's the sort of thing you see done in films about organized crime. It certainly doesn't reflect my values.
But neither do the plans of the people the government is pursuing.
According to the New York Times article, "Democrats have put their trust in Senators Graham, McCain and Warner to push back against the White House, and Thursday they signaled that they intended to continue cooperating. “Five years after Sept. 11, it is time to make the tough and smart decisions to give the American people the real security they deserve,” said the Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada." (links in original)
You know, I desperately, desperately want to believe in actual bipartisan cooperation to achieve something that halfway reflects some spirit of compromise and cooperation.
But! What am I supposed to do or think about this?
[quote begins from New York Times editorial, A Bad Bargain]
The deal does next to nothing to stop the president from reinterpreting the Geneva Conventions. While the White House agreed to a list of “grave breaches” of the conventions that could be prosecuted as war crimes, it stipulated that the president could decide on his own what actions might be a lesser breach of the Geneva Conventions and what interrogation techniques he considered permissible. It’s not clear how much the public will ultimately learn about those decisions. They will be contained in an executive order that is supposed to be made public, but Mr. Hadley reiterated that specific interrogation techniques will remain secret.
Even before the compromises began to emerge, the overall bill prepared by the three senators had fatal flaws. It allows the president to declare any foreigner, anywhere, an “illegal enemy combatant” using a dangerously broad definition, and detain him without any trial. It not only fails to deal with the fact that many of the Guantánamo detainees are not terrorists and will never be charged, but it also chokes off any judicial review.
The Democrats have largely stood silent and allowed the trio of Republicans to do the lifting. It’s time for them to either try to fix this bill or delay it until after the election. The American people expect their leaders to clean up this mess without endangering U.S. troops, eviscerating American standards of justice, or further harming the nation’s severely damaged reputation.
[quote ends]
Predictably, the good progressives at The Huffington Post are furious---at the Democrats.
[quote begins from Greg Saunders, Don't Vote Democrat]
I'm not kidding. If the last week is any indicator of what we've got to look forward to in a Democratic Congress, then don't bother. The last time they were in charge we got the Patriot Act, the Iraq War resolution, and the Medicare drug bill. Now with every poll supporting the Democrats and the Republicans on the ropes, these cowards are still afraid to throw the first punch. Instead, we see the torture issue (yeah, that's how far we've sunk) being co-opted by a group the media have dubbed the Republican "Rebels" whose grand act of rebellion consisted of giving the President the right to do whatever he wants.
[quote ends]
Charles Pierce at The American Prospect (quoted by Saunders in his blog): "You worthless passel of cowards. They're laughing at you. You know that, right?...The national Democratic Party is no longer worth the cement needed to sink it to the bottom of the sea."
Back (again) to The Huffington Post:
[quote begins from Susan Madrak, The Democrats: Too Clever by Half]
The Democrats don't so much want to win the mid-term elections as they want to sit back and hope the Republicans lose it for themselves. This is what I was trying to tell Harry Reid: People will only believe in the Democrats again if they stop calculating every word and just stand up and fight for them. Instead, we get this.
Nice work, Harry. Nice work. Now the Democrats (surprise, surprise) look like ciphers, and the Republicans look like fucking statesmen - merely for barely shaving the definition of torture. And you sold democracy down the river by hedging your bets.
[quote ends (links in original)]
So, clearly, to see this as a reassuring example of a bipartisan accord in the interests of national security is not PC (Progressively Correct).
I expected the Democrats to do....something, you know? Though it's a bit of a catch-22 for them, I do see: if they fight it, they're being partisan; and if they go along, they're a "passel of cowards."
Here's a thought; Let's throw them ALL out, and start over from scratch.
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