McCain gained ground against the White House today as Bush finally conceded on the torture issue, at least in public. After both the Senate and the House voted for the ban on torture. Now torture will be done like it was in the old days, in secret places, far from the prying eyes of groups like the Red Cross or other humanitarian groups. Of course, if people get caught, they'll swing for it but what's a few "rogue" soldiers in the war on terror.

The Washington Post had a few things to say on the matter.

President Bush reversed position yesterday and endorsed a torture ban crafted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) after months of White House attempts to weaken the measure, which would prohibit the "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of any detainee in U.S. custody anywhere in the world.

[...]

That language specifically would allow those civilians to defend their use of interrogation tactics by arguing in court that a "person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful." But legal experts said that provision also carries with it an implicit responsibility: Should CIA operatives or other civilians believe they were being directed to use an interrogation technique that was illegal, they would be obligated to disobey the order.

Realistically, that won't happen. Like so many other organizations, they do what they're told. This is just an easy out for command of liability on the issue. In the end, my cynical side says this is just lip service as much as I'd like to believe it's true. Our government has a long and distinguished history of doing naughty things to it's own people, let alone foreign aggressors. Now they'll just ship these poor bastards to North Africa so the Europeans don't have to hold their breath anymore hoping they don't get caught running these people through their airports and the U.S. can wash it's hands of the matter. Did I mention the CIA will now really shoot to kill?

posted by Stithmeister @ 8:57 PM
 
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