Bush Threatens to Veto Defense Appropriations Bill over Prisoner Treatment

Kafka couldn’t write it better. The US Senate, controlled by the Republican Party, has passed a defense appropriations bill running to $440 billion. It has included language demanding that American troops follow the US Army Field Manual in dealing with prisoners, and that specifically, the Senate wants those in US custody to be spared “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” President Bush, also a Republican, has threatened to veto this bill – during a war he started in Iraq – if the language remains.

In the five years since the Supreme Court selected him as president, Mr. Bush has not vetoed a single bill. With the GOP in control of both houses of Congress and both taking their lead from the White House, that shouldn’t be surprising. What is surprising is that Mr. Bush is threatening to deny the Pentagon money because the Senate is demanding that the military follow its own regulations that have been in force for decades.

Scott McClellan, White House flak, said the language is “unnecessary and duplicative.” He added, “If it's presented [the amendment in the final version of the bill], then there would be a recommendation of a veto, I believe.” Then, he said that the amendment “would limit the president's ability as commander-in-chief to effectively carry out the war on terrorism.” Clearly, Mr. McClellan is torturing logic even if US troops aren’t torturing captives.

If the language is unnecessary and duplicative, accepting it is harmless if clerically messy. At the same time, if the amendment will interfere with the war on terrorism, then surely the existing law does the same. Yet, there has been no attempt by the White House to repeal the original rules. In which case, the President has willfully neglected to remove this restriction – an assertion Mr. McClellan also won’t want to draw.

More than likely, this idiocy is an attempt to derail Senator McCain’s efforts to root out the administration chicken-hawks’ view that Americans are allowed to commit torture and other crimes against humanity because they’re Americans and therefore the good guys. Captain Ian Fishback of the 82nd Airborne wrote a letter to the senator which the Washington Post published saying his men witnessed “death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment” in both Iraq and Afghanistan. So apparently, Abu Ghraib wasn’t an isolated incident, which is the Bush administration’s party line.

As Senator McCain said, “The enemy we fight has no respect for human life or human rights. They don't deserve our sympathy. But this isn't about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies.” The whole world would very much like for the Americans to be the guys in the white hats. But as conservative Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said when the Abu Ghraib scandal first broke, “If you’re gonna be the good guys, you have to act like the good guys.” Why the administration doesn’t accept that is beyond belief.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
Produced using Fedora Linux.

Home