We Don’t Torture

We Don\’t Torture: Comandante Agi

Sunday’s New York Times lead editorial reminds us that President Bush has promised to veto the bill that limits all US agencies, including the CIA, to the interrogation practices in the Army Field Manual. Congress had previously outlawed waterboarding and other inhumane treatment by codifying the Army Field Manual’s limits, but Attorney General Mukasey’s flexible moral standards found this direction insufficient to declare waterboarding torture and thus illegal under US treaty law.

It is disgraceful that Congress had to pass a statute to remedy Mukasey’s lack of moral character, and even more disgraceful that we now find the President threatening to veto the bill, solely because it might require his own Attorney General to investigate the Administration’s complicity in torture. By the way, John McCain voted against this bill. [h/t JimWhite] From the editorial:

Mr. Bush is planning to veto a law that would require the C.I.A. and all the intelligence services to abide by the restrictions on holding and interrogating prisoners contained in the United States Army Field Manual. Mr. Bush says the Army rules are too restrictive.

What are these burdens? In addition to a blanket prohibition of torture, the manual specifically bans:

– Forcing a prisoner to be naked, perform sexual acts or pose in a sexual manner.

– Placing hoods or sacks over the head of a prisoner, and using duct tape over the eyes.

– Applying beatings, electric shocks, burns or other forms of physical pain.

– Waterboarding.

– Using military working dogs.

– Inducing hypothermia or heat injury.

– Conducting mock executions.

– Depriving a prisoner of necessary food, water or medical care.

The President’s intentions also come at a time when he has been lecturing the Democratic candidates about America’s moral obligations not to unilaterally abrogate US treaties, such as NAFTA, which are, under the Constitution, the "supreme law of the land."

Never mind that neither candidate had called for unilateral abrogation. It is simply this President’s style to project qualities on others that he exemplifies when he holds his largely reality free press conferences. From Thursday’s Bush press conference:

At a time when both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have been critical of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which they say has cost jobs in places like Ohio, Mr. Bush said bluntly that a unilateral withdrawal from the treaty “is not good policy.”

Mr. Bush then added that if the Congress chose not to ratify the next free-trade agreement with Columbia, on the grounds of Columbia’s alleged human rights violations, they would "encourage false populism in our neighborhood." I guess that means the US should not be concerned with human rights violations, because that can lead to the evils of populist sentiment. What is this embarrassment of a President talking about?

It might be helpful to remind the President that the United States is a signatory to numerous international treaties relating to human rights, such as the Geneva Conventions and other treaties outlawing the use of torture and the mistreatment of detainees captured in war situations. The US has conducted war crimes trials of those accused of violating these principles in prior conflicts. Now, as emptywheel notes, it can’t seem to conduct tribunals without compromising those same treaties.

Because the President and his men seem to have such a difficult time grasping the principle Mr. Bush is mouthing about the sanctity of America’s treaty obligations, it might be useful to show them some pictures. WARNING: The investigators at Wired have released dozens of additional photos of the human rights violations by US forces at Abu Ghraib. Take some time to view these pictures. And then recall that no senior US military or CIA official, and no responsible civilian in the Pentagon or Bush White House has ever been held criminally responsible for what happened.

Spencer Ackerman reports on how the CIA was largely in the dark on interrogations. (h/t cbl2) Crooks & Liars has more.