California Conservative

WASHINGTON (CNN) — After months of opposition, the White House agreed Thursday to Republican Sen. John McCain’s call to ban torture by U.S. personnel.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Virginia, and McCain, R-Arizona, met with President Bush to discuss the deal, which Warner said he expects to be finalized by the end of the day.

After the meeting, McCain said “this is a done deal.”

Warner called it “landmark legislation” and lauded McCain for “staying the course.” He said the Senate and House would vote on the ban soon.

Republican officials said the tweaked version of the bill will include everything that McCain initially requested. His initial bill called for banning all U.S. personnel from engaging in “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” of detainees.

Warner’s Republican counterpart in the House, Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, told CNN’s Andrea Koppel a lot of details must be worked out before a final deal is reached.

“We’re working to merge the two vital American goals of treating people humanely and at the same time maintaining an effective intelligence gathering system,” Hunter said.

“We think we’re about to do something that’s good for the country.”

Anti Idiotarian Rottweiller asks Why Don’t We Just Surrender and Get it Over With? So now that Al Qadea has its own Bill of Rights granted to it, the ACLU are applauding! Of course they are, because this is not only protecting terrorists from rough interrogation, it may very well have to be given Miranda warnings as well as free lawyers —payed for by the Americans they are trying to kill. Now where do you think those lawyers will come from? Before this ridiculous bill, it was to our advantage that terrorists were not protected under the Geneva Conventions, and I believe there was good reason when the Geneva Conventions were written to exclude such monsters. This bill rewards the enemy with deferential treatment similar to that given honorable prisoners of war.

So now, who defines torture? Is being wrapped in the Israeli flag torture? Well according to this bill, one could define it as “degrading.” So, expect the usual suspects like the ACLU to start filing many more lawsuits in favor of our enemies. This bill is fuel to the ACLU’s anti-American fire.

But wait!!!! The ACLU are not happy with some of the compromises made. Giving rights to the terrorists was not enough.

“But the wheeling and dealing doesn’t stop. While today’s vote is a step in the right direction, it is severely undermined by reports that a secret back-room deal has been brokered that would undermine the very principles the House affirmed today. This proposed last-minute, closed-door deal that undermines the rule of law must not be allowed to pass. These changes will be a big step backward in stopping the government from using torture and abuse during interrogations. Instead of putting an end to the federal government’s use of torture and abuse, the proposed deal would remove many protections against torture and abuse.

“If the dealmakers get their way, for the first time in its history, Congress would authorize the use of evidence obtained by torture and would provide special rights for government officials who commit torture or abuse. In addition, it would also mark the first time in modern history that Congress stripped all courts, including the Supreme Court, of jurisdiction to stop torture or abuse, or other violations of due process. We urge all lawmakers to reject these proposals and stand for the rule of law.”

So, giving terrorists that want to kill us, or have even tried to kill us is not enough for the anti-American Civil Liberties Union…they are up and arms now that we have made a deal that would give rights to someone that might be falsly accused of torture. They don’t want special rights for government officials. What a double standard we have here. According to the ACLU someone accused of terrorism should be allowed to defend theirself in Court, but someone accused of roughing them up should have no rights at all. How typical of the Anti-American Counter Liberties Union. Bush what were you thinking?

Cross-posted from Stop The ACLU

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 15th, 2005 at 8:44 am and is filed under ACLU, Law, Liberals, Special Interests, Terrorism, W. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.