McCain and The Not So Effectual Ban On Torture
Civil libertarians applaud. The air of legal permissibility surrounding the alleged use of torture has ended. Right? Well, not entirely.
According to the McCain amendment, as included within the recently passed FY2006 Department of Defense Appropriation bill, to acquire the definition of cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment one must revisit Senate understandings taken into account with ratification of the Convention Against Torture (CAT). According to the reservation, activity must include “extreme physical or mental pain or suffering.” Yes, it’s the very same source interpreted by the Bush Administration as prohibiting only the most extreme forms of harm.
So, what then is extreme? According to since-leaked internal memoranda circulated throughout the Executive branch, an act is deemed extreme only if rising to the level of “organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” Using this strikingly narrow interpretation, the President was left unabated to engage in the very species of conduct which instigated McCain’s intended prohibition.
What’s more, amidst nascent investigations being conducted by Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Norway, and the Council of Europe, paired with two pending civil suits in the United States and Canada, Administration efforts to render high-value targets likely continue. Nothing in the McCain amendment appears to address the exportation of “tough interrogation” elsewhere. Indeed, little has in fact changed.
In an Executive milieu where, as now Attorney General Gonzalez wrote, the Geneva Conventions are deemed “quaint” and “obsolete”, lackluster definitions butterfly suspects through the criminal, military, and intelligence venues at whim, and surveillance authorities swell, little optimism likely remains that the new McCain provisions will render a different result the second time around.
What’s more, President Bush in signing the Defense Appropriations bill last week, made clear that no provision within that act –or any other Congressional expression whatever –prohibits the President from acting as Commander-in-Chief. No doubt, this would not be too particularly troublesome were it not for the incredible generosity with which the Administration appears to view its wartime authority these days. Congress now prepares for a slew of hearings promising to reenact the lost days of the Church Commission in investigating recent revelations over the President’s unilateral determination to skirt Congressional enactments for the conduct of surveillance against American citizens by the NSA. And as the assumption of Executive fiat expands, Congress again faces the exigent prospect of losing a grip.
According to the McCain amendment, as included within the recently passed FY2006 Department of Defense Appropriation bill, to acquire the definition of cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment one must revisit Senate understandings taken into account with ratification of the Convention Against Torture (CAT). According to the reservation, activity must include “extreme physical or mental pain or suffering.” Yes, it’s the very same source interpreted by the Bush Administration as prohibiting only the most extreme forms of harm.
So, what then is extreme? According to since-leaked internal memoranda circulated throughout the Executive branch, an act is deemed extreme only if rising to the level of “organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” Using this strikingly narrow interpretation, the President was left unabated to engage in the very species of conduct which instigated McCain’s intended prohibition.
What’s more, amidst nascent investigations being conducted by Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Norway, and the Council of Europe, paired with two pending civil suits in the United States and Canada, Administration efforts to render high-value targets likely continue. Nothing in the McCain amendment appears to address the exportation of “tough interrogation” elsewhere. Indeed, little has in fact changed.
In an Executive milieu where, as now Attorney General Gonzalez wrote, the Geneva Conventions are deemed “quaint” and “obsolete”, lackluster definitions butterfly suspects through the criminal, military, and intelligence venues at whim, and surveillance authorities swell, little optimism likely remains that the new McCain provisions will render a different result the second time around.
What’s more, President Bush in signing the Defense Appropriations bill last week, made clear that no provision within that act –or any other Congressional expression whatever –prohibits the President from acting as Commander-in-Chief. No doubt, this would not be too particularly troublesome were it not for the incredible generosity with which the Administration appears to view its wartime authority these days. Congress now prepares for a slew of hearings promising to reenact the lost days of the Church Commission in investigating recent revelations over the President’s unilateral determination to skirt Congressional enactments for the conduct of surveillance against American citizens by the NSA. And as the assumption of Executive fiat expands, Congress again faces the exigent prospect of losing a grip.
posted by McNabb Associates, P.C. @ 1:19 PM
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