Dick Cheney Calls for Exemption on Torture Ban--Senators Side With McCain to Outlaw Torture

Dick Cheney Calls for Exemption on Torture Ban

Senators Side With McCain to Outlaw Torture

By Phillip Lorenz
November 6, 2005

Last week, in a closed-door session of Congress, Dick Cheney
tried to appeal to Republican senators on an issue he holds close to
his heart. The issue: torture.
According to senators from the closed-door session, Cheney
asked for an exemption on the torture ban proposed by Sen. John
McCain (R-AZ). The exemption would allow CIA operatives to torture
suspects in U.S. custody, upon the command of the president.
Cheney told the senators that although the U.S. doesn't
participate in torture, the president needed to be the one who
decides whether or not torture was necessary to prevent a terrorist
attack.

One might be led to question the logic of allowing Mr. Bush to
have final say on the issue of allowing torture to prevent a
terrorist attack. After all, didn't Mr. Bush misuse his power to go
to war in Iraq "in the interest of preventing a terrorist arrack?"
Can people really trust Mr. Bush's wisdom?
Besides being illegal, allowing torture in the interest of
national security is reminiscent of the excuses Nazi Germany and the
Stalinist Soviet Union used to torture their "enemies of the state."
Also, to fully grasp this issue, it may be helpful to keep in mind
that 90% of the people arrested as "terrorist suspects" were
completely innocent. Since when did it become acceptable to torture
innocent people that Mr. Bush believes might be a terrorist?
Senators overwhelmingly sided with John McCain. The measure
banning torture passed the Senate by 90-9 vote. Additionally, Sen.
Chuck Hagel, a leading Republican senator, commented that the Bush
Administration was making "a terrible mistake" in opposing the
amendment banning torture. "Why in the world they're doing that, I
don't know."
On CBS's Face the Nation, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners "is not what America is
all about. Those aren't the values that we're fighting for."
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) a survivor of torture from a POW camp
he was held in for 5-1/2 years, definitely didn't believe he was
fighting for an America that treats its POWs just like Vietnam does.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon released it's first screening of
servicemembers leaving Iraq. More than 1/4 of returning soldiers
suffer from health problems that require medical or mental health
treatment. Almost 1,700 servicemembers have harbored thoughts of
hurting themselves or believed that they would be better off dead,
with 250 saying they had such thoughts "a lot." Nearly 20,000
reported nightmares or unwanted war recollections, while more than
3,700 said they had concerns that they might "hurt or lose control"
with someone else.
On October 25, the U.S. death toll in Iraq reached the grim
milestone of 2,000. Sen. Robert Byrd, a leading Democrat from West
Virginia, said Americans should expect "many more losses to come."
Why should American have to expect many more losses to come?
What is it that makes people dejectedly accept the idea of many more
losses of human life in the future? After all, there is one way to
guarantee an end to any more losses in Iraq: bring the troops home.
The insurgency shows no signs of slowing. A new Pentagon report
estimates that 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded by
insurgents since Jan. 1, 2004. From Aug. 29 to Sept. 16, there were
an estimated 64 Iraqi casualties each day, the report said. An
Associated Press count found that at least 3,870 Iraqis have died in
the last six months. Some credible independent analysts have figured
that the number of Iraqis killed in this war is higher than 100,000.
War breeds nothing but death and destruction. Nothing positive
ever comes from it. The solution to death and destruction is not
more war. It is peace.



Sources: Toronto Sun
USA Today: Senate, Cheney divided over torture ban
USA Today: Cheney pushes senators for exemption to CIA torture ban
Washington Times
USA Today: 1 in 4 Iraq vets ailing on return
USA Today: U.S. military death toll in Iraq hits 2,000
USA Today: Latest Iraq attacks kill Iraq vice president's brother