McCain-Bush “anti-torture” measure gives legal cover for continued abuse

[Karmadillo]

Saying one thing while doing another? Not the United States! No way!

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/tort-d17.shtml

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The claim that adherence to international law on the treatment of prisoners can be squared with support for the war in Iraq is a repudiation of the fundamental principle laid down at the Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals after World War II. The prosecution, led by US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, insisted that the basic crime committed by the defendants, from which flowed all other crimes—including torture, the network of concentration camps, even the extermination of the European Jews—was the planning and waging of aggressive war. Bush, McCain—in fact, the entire US political establishment and both parties—defend just such a war of aggression: the unprovoked “preventive” war against Iraq, plotted years in advance and launched on the basis of lies.

The differences between McCain and the White House were from the start more a matter of form than substance. The sticking point had been the insistence of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that the CIA be exempted from any ban on the use of torture or abusive methods.

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The Graham amendment passed with the support of most Democratic senators, as well as that of John McCain. This very fact demonstrates the cynicism behind the McCain amendment on inhumane treatment. With one breath its backers claim to oppose torture, with the other they support the use of “evidence” obtained through its use.

On top of this, the Bush administration defines torture so narrowly—in a manner entirely at odds with international law—that virtually any abusive method can be said to fall outside the definition. A New York Times editorial on Friday noted that hours after the McCain-White House deal was announced, “Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made it crystal clear that the administration would define torture any way it liked. He said on CNN that torture meant the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental harm, and repeated the word ‘severe’ twice. He would not even say whether that included ‘waterboarding’—tormenting a prisoner by making him think he is being drowned.”

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The administration is only able to employ such methods, and lie so brazenly to the American people, because it knows it will not be seriously challenged by the Democratic Party or the media. On the contrary, the Democratic leadership supports not only the war in Iraq, but also, whether openly or tacitly, the use of torture as an instrument US imperialist policy around the world.

[Junkdrawer]

1. Kicked and Nominated...Passing a Law with an "Anti-Torture" Heading...

and actually stopping torture and punishing those who engaged in torture are two VERY different things in BushCo's Orwellian America.