Opponents of Torture are True Patriots by JOE CONASON

[Auntie Bush]

I hope this important article can be sent to all our Senators.
He raises some good points.

http://www.observer.com/20060925/20060925_Joe_Conason_politics_joeconason.asp


Opponents of Torture
Are True Patriots



By Joe Conason


Naïve citizens may be surprised to learn that some of the most morally upright of our fellow Americans, at least by their own estimation, are also among the most enthusiastic endorsers of the practice of torture. Even more startling than their zeal to abuse detainees—many of whom are innocent of any offense—is their eagerness to exploit those abuses for partisan political advantage.

The President has sent legislation to Capitol Hill that would “clarify” the parameters available to those who interrogate prisoners in the war on terrorism. His bill would apparently permit the use of “waterboarding,” which simulates drowning, and “long time standing,” which is exactly what it sounds like (with shackles), as well as sleep deprivation, constant loud noise and death threats.

To oppose any of these methods, or so the political advertising would claim, is to jeopardize national security, endanger our troops and coddle terrorists. That is how Republican strategists hope to make voters forget the incompetence and corruption on display in Washington, Baghdad and New Orleans and let the party escape disaster in the midterm elections.

Their strategy, however, has been thwarted so far by a single simple fact: The leading opponents of torture in the Senate include three Republican veterans—John McCain of Arizona, John Warner of Virginia and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina—and perhaps as many as nine other Republicans, along with most of the Senate Democrats. They refuse to sanction interrogation techniques that obviously violate Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Voting for the Bush bill means, in effect, not only legalizing those forms of abuse but, even more significantly, repealing the ratification of the conventions.

Whether George W. Bush and Dick Cheney realize it or not, official withdrawal from the Geneva Conventions, which date back well over a century and represent generations of military tradition, is an exceptionally heavy responsibility.

[Supersedeas]

1. Rolling over to fall in lockstep - what are they?