Imagine a person sitting naked in the middle of a cold, dark cell. Imagine that cell is 50 degrees. Imagine music has been blasted for 24 straight hours. Imagine a feeling of asphyxiation is induced through waterboarding, which causes a fear of imminent death. Now imagine this person is a United States soldier.
The White House bill dealing with interrogation of terrorist suspects will allow this scenario to come to fruition. It proves that President Bush will do anything in his power to ignore the international rules of war known as the Geneva Conventions.
Starting two weeks ago, the Senate Armed Services Committee, led by three respected combat veterans—Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; and Sen. John Warner, R-Md.—blocked the passage of the bill and hoped to compromise with Bush.
After initially stating it had to be done his way or the program would be completely scrapped, which is untrue because interrogations can obviously be done legally, Bush backed down slightly by dropping his insistence to redefine the Geneva Conventions. Then the three Republicans caved, basically giving him this right anyway.
The supposed compromise is nothing more than capitulation and all members of Congress should be ashamed. While the bill outlines specific war crimes—including murder, torture and rape—it also gives the president the power to ""interpret the meaning and application"" of these crimes.
As The Washington Post reports, ""Such a provision is intended to allow him to authorize methods that might otherwise be seen as illegal by international courts.""
Before the compromise was reached, former Secretary of State Colin Powell had some harsh words for Bush.
""The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,"" he said in a letter to McCain. ""Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.""
This is the main issue at hand. The Geneva Conventions represent international law and our own awful interpretations will put our own troops at risk.
""If America continues to erode the meaning of the Geneva Conventions, we will cede the ground upon which to prosecute dictators and warlords,"" said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America in a New York Times op/ed.
""We will also become unable to protect our troops if they are perceived as being no more bound by the rule of law than dictators and warlords themselves.""
President Bush went into Iraq with the goal of spreading freedom. His attack on the Geneva Conventions breaks down the very freedoms he so vigorously espouses.
So far, 3,042 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sixty-five of those brave soldiers were from Wisconsin. Bypassing the Geneva Conventions and allowing illegal torture methods to be freely used is not the way to honor those that have died. It only puts the soldiers still over there at an even greater risk.
""It is not hard to imagine that one of our Special Forces soldiers might one day be captured by Iranian forces while investigating a potential nuclear weapons program,"" Rieckhoff said.
If that were the case, our own violation of international law would most likely lead them to submit that soldier to a scenario similar to that described above. Even worse, he would never be shown the evidence against him and could be sentenced to death.
Thanks to Congress' rubber-stamp decision, this is increasingly likely.
