Bush & GOP "urgently need" new tools to gut the Geneva Conventions

[Human Torch]

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 — President Bush and Congressional Republicans spent the last 10 days laying the foundation for a titanic pre-election struggle over national security, and now they have one. But the fight playing out this week on Capitol Hill is not what they had in mind. Instead of drawing contrasts with Democrats, the president’s call for creating military tribunals to try terror suspects — a key substantive and political component of his fall agenda — has erupted into a remarkably intense clash pitting some of the best-known warriors in the Republican Party against Mr. Bush and the Congressional leadership.

At issue are definitions of what is permissible in trials and interrogations that both sides view as central to the character of the nation, the way the United States is perceived abroad and the rules of the game for what Mr. Bush has said will be a multigenerational battle against Islamic terrorists.

Democrats have so far remained on the sidelines, sidestepping Republican efforts to draw them into a fight over Mr. Bush’s leadership on national security heading toward the midterm election. Democrats are rapt spectators, however, shielded by the stern opposition to the president being expressed by three Republicans with impeccable credentials on military matters: Senators John McCain of Arizona, John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The three were joined on Thursday by Colin L. Powell, formerly the secretary of state and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in challenging the administration’s approach.

It is one of those rare Congressional moments when the policy is as monumental as the politics. On one side are the Republican veterans of the uniformed services, arguing that the president’s proposal would effectively gut the nearly 60-year-old Geneva Conventions, sending a dark signal to the rest of the world and leaving United States military without adequate protection against torture and mistreatment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/us/politics/15assess.html

[lisainmilo]

1. Hitler is in WH!

I have all of this on my website! It disgusts me! He disgusts me, and I am ashamed of our presidency!

[wtmusic]

2. What this is all about:

getting Junior and AG Gonzales off the hook of possible prosecution for war crimes under the 1996 War Crimes Act, before the Democratic Congress comes to town. Absolutely NOTHING to do with "terror suspects".

[fooj]

3. Doesn't look like it's so "legal" after all, does it?

Little Lord Pissypants and his sidekick Gonzo are in for one hell of a ride...