Dems Make New Move to Outlaw Torture

[babylonsister]

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/dems_to_push_again_to_limit_in.php

Dems to Push Again to Limit Interrogation Techniques
By Paul Kiel - April 29, 2008, 1:52PM


Last month, Democrats, with the help of a few crossover Republicans (but not Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)), passed a bill that would have limited the CIA's interrogation techniques to those authorized by the Army Field Manual. Waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation" techniques (use of hoods or duct tape over the eyes, inducing hypothermia, etc.) would have been specifically and unambiguously outlawed.

President Bush, as promised, vetoed that bill, saying that restricting CIA interrogators "could cost American lives." An override vote failed in the House.

Now Senate Democrats are going to try again. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) says that she'll introduce the measure as an amendment to 2009's Senate intelligence authorization bill, because "at the time we vowed to come back - again and again if necessary - to ensure that torture by U.S. intelligence agencies is outlawed for good." Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), John Rockefeller (D-WV), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) are also sponsoring the amendment. Over the weekend, Wyden released correspondence from the Justice Department showing how lawyers there dealt with current ambiguity in the relevant laws. What counted as an "outrage upon personal dignity," a DoJ official wrote, depended on whether "an act is undertaken to prevent a threatened terrorist attack."

[electropop]

1. Good! Let the Pukes keep voting for torture.

Let's turn the fear weapon against them. How could anybody not be afraid of a pro-torture candidate? And we could also ask them to explain how pro-torture and pro-life fit together.

[lonestarnot]

4. Pissy pants! Boo! Get under your desk bushitler and mcwar!

:applause:

[nomorenomore08]

6. "How pro-torture and pro-life fit together."

Simple - torturing terrorists (they're guilty until proven innocent, remember?) makes the world safe for Christian babies, especially affluent white ones. :sarcasm:

[Turbineguy]

2. They should wait until Bush

and Cheney have confessed everything. :evilgrin:

[gratuitous]

3. Bring it up again and again

And let the Republicans make the case for torture, which is in essence a call for our own people to be tortured. After all, if the United States does it, why can't everyone else?

I like how the Justice Department rationalizes torture: If we torture someone so as to "prevent a threatened terrorist attack," then it's not really torture. Uh huh. Right. It soon becomes "You never know, this could have prevented a threatened terrorist attack." And the option to torture soon transforms into the obligation to torture.

[KakistocracyHater]

5. It was already against the law

why do you think the goppies undid their own 1996 WAR CRIMES ACT? That proves they KNEW they were breaking the law, just because they then did what Milosovic did & got their golfing buddy judges to write down on paper that they are "exempt from certain laws" DOES NOT MAKE IT TRUE. Milosovic is dead, but he was guilty as sin & I think convicted before he died.

[Richard Steele]

7. TORTURE is already illegal, and B*sh already ignores Congress. This is bullshit political theater.nm

[deaniac21]

8. I don't think we should torture outlaws either.

[mainegreen]

9. Oooh, I get to applaud my senator for once.

It happens from time to time.