Cowering "Democrats" leave HEAVY LIFTING of OPPOSING BUSH TORTURE demands to Repub. Senators.....
Cowering Dems LEAVE THE HEAVY LIFTING re oppposing Bush's demands for KGB arrest, torture, and totalitarian detention powers to.... REPUBLICAN senators.
...And that is the state of American democracy in 2006, Democrats see it as their job to ROLL OVER for the right-wing, George W. Bush agenda at each and every opportunity, much less MAJOR FIGHT.
GOP Senators Heading Battle with Bush are Heavy Hitters
McCain, Graham, Warner have deep military credentials
Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Hearst Newspapers
Sunday, September 17, 2006
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/09/17/MNGIHL7B481.DTL&type=politics
PDT Washington -- The three Republican senators leading the fight against the Bush administration's plan for prosecuting suspected terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay have impressive military credentials.
Former Navy pilot John McCain, R-Ariz., was captured during the Vietnam War and spent more than five years as a prisoner of war.
Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is a military law officer in the Air Force Reserve; when on active duty, he once prompted an overhaul of a flawed Air Force drug-testing program after defending a demoted pilot on a drug charge.
And John Warner, R-Va., has spent years immersed in defense issues and the law, beginning with service in the Navy and Marine Corps during World War II and the Korean War and including two years as the secretary of the Navy.
For this powerful group, the fight is personal.
"For me, it's a simple test," Graham said. "If it's a trial, would I be OK with our guys being tried in that way? If it's an interrogation setting, would I be OK with our guys being interrogated?"
Because, Graham added, U.S. decisions about handling detainees could "come back to haunt us."
This week, the Senate is headed to a showdown over how to prosecute suspected terrorists and whether to require the CIA to use interrogation techniques that comply with the Geneva Conventions' mandate that wartime prisoners be "treated humanely."
The Republican versus Republican legislative fight was provoked by the Supreme Court's ruling in June that the military commissions devised by the Bush administration violate U.S. law. Those commissions were designed by the administration to put detainees on trial but the court ruled that it was up to Congress to create any special judicial system for enemy combatants.
On one side of the debate are the Bush administration and most of the 55 Republicans in the Senate, who say U.S. interrogators should be viewed as following the Geneva Conventions as long as they do not engage in "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment barred by a 2005 federal law. The administration and its backers in Congress also want to allow military commissions to be able to convict suspected terrorists after viewing classified evidence that the suspects can't see.
At a news conference Friday, President Bush said he would object to any legislation that would jeopardize the CIA's "invaluable" program for interrogating suspected terrorists.
"The intelligence community must be able to tell me that the bill Congress sends to my desk will allow this vital program to continue," Bush said.
In his radio address Saturday, Bush said his proposal provides clear rules for U.S. personnel involved in detaining and questioning alleged terrorists held by the CIA.
"The information the Central Intelligence Agency has obtained by questioning men like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks) has helped disrupt terrorist plots, including planned strikes inside the United States and on a U.S. Marine base in East Africa, an American consulate in Pakistan and Britain's Heathrow Airport," Bush said.
"This CIA program has saved American lives, and the lives of people in other countries," he said.
Bush's comments were a challenge to McCain, Graham and Warner, who want U.S. soldiers and operatives to strictly follow the Geneva Conventions when interrogating prisoners. They also want stronger legal protections for enemy combatants and to make it harder for U.S. prosecutors to use classified intelligence in the courtroom without sharing it with the defendants on trial.
One way or another, "we're set up for a collision," predicted Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who backs the Bush plan and has been an outspoken critic of the proposal by McCain, Graham and Warner.
Senate Democrats have been content to mostly sit back and watch Republicans fight among themselves, though most, if not all, of the chamber's Democrats are expected ultimately to line up behind the three. A handful of Republicans, including Susan Collins of Maine, also support the trio.
Cornyn said the three senators' backgrounds and engaging personalities -- Graham and McCain are regulars on Sunday morning TV talk shows -- are what make them such formidable opponents.
Given their pro-military voting records and their own military backgrounds, the three have unmatched credentials when it comes to issues involving military justice. Their campaign has weakened what Republican Senate aides hoped would be a chance to use the congressional debates on this issue to claim that Democrats were weak on terrorism, in advance of the Nov. 7 elections.
McCain warns that if the United States doesn't strictly follow the Geneva Conventions, including the treaty's ban on "outrages upon personal dignity," other nations could follow suit with captured U.S. soldiers.
"Weakening the Geneva protections is not only unnecessary, but would set an example to other countries, with less respect for basic human rights, that they could issue their own legislative 'reinterpretations,' " McCain said in a statement released Friday. "This puts our military personnel and others directly at risk in this and future wars."
Graham also said lawmakers aren't just deciding, in a vacuum, what legal rights and protections to give suspected terrorists. They're effectively deciding how other countries will treat American captives.
"Whatever we do will (either) lead the way for the world, set an example we can be proud of, be a shining light for people to follow, or we can set -- by cutting legal corners -- policies that will come back to haunt us," Graham said.
Graham and McCain have been in a similar position before. Last year, the two successfully battled the administration and won approval of a ban on torture.
Unlike anyone else in the Senate, McCain has personal experience with torture. The Arizona Republican was beaten and interrogated regularly during his years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. McCain insists that using torture as an interrogation technique only results in bad intelligence "because, under torture, a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop."
Warner has emerged as a surprising ally of McCain and Graham. Warner generally stands with Republicans on defense and national security issues when the two parties are divided but he has been aggressive in investigating the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
The three senators already have forced the administration to change course on plans for trying detainees. The three Republicans were among the first voices in the Congress to urge the administration to adapt the existing military courts-martial system for trying suspected terrorists. During a July hearing, Graham bluntly warned administration lawyers that if they did not take that approach, "it's going to be a long, hot summer."
Ultimately, the Bush administration sent Congress a plan for commissions that generally tracks the courts-martial procedures.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
...And that is the state of American democracy in 2006, Democrats see it as their job to ROLL OVER for the right-wing, George W. Bush agenda at each and every opportunity, much less MAJOR FIGHT.
GOP Senators Heading Battle with Bush are Heavy Hitters
McCain, Graham, Warner have deep military credentials
Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Hearst Newspapers
Sunday, September 17, 2006
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/09/17/MNGIHL7B481.DTL&type=politics
PDT Washington -- The three Republican senators leading the fight against the Bush administration's plan for prosecuting suspected terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay have impressive military credentials.
Former Navy pilot John McCain, R-Ariz., was captured during the Vietnam War and spent more than five years as a prisoner of war.
Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is a military law officer in the Air Force Reserve; when on active duty, he once prompted an overhaul of a flawed Air Force drug-testing program after defending a demoted pilot on a drug charge.
And John Warner, R-Va., has spent years immersed in defense issues and the law, beginning with service in the Navy and Marine Corps during World War II and the Korean War and including two years as the secretary of the Navy.
For this powerful group, the fight is personal.
"For me, it's a simple test," Graham said. "If it's a trial, would I be OK with our guys being tried in that way? If it's an interrogation setting, would I be OK with our guys being interrogated?"
Because, Graham added, U.S. decisions about handling detainees could "come back to haunt us."
This week, the Senate is headed to a showdown over how to prosecute suspected terrorists and whether to require the CIA to use interrogation techniques that comply with the Geneva Conventions' mandate that wartime prisoners be "treated humanely."
The Republican versus Republican legislative fight was provoked by the Supreme Court's ruling in June that the military commissions devised by the Bush administration violate U.S. law. Those commissions were designed by the administration to put detainees on trial but the court ruled that it was up to Congress to create any special judicial system for enemy combatants.
On one side of the debate are the Bush administration and most of the 55 Republicans in the Senate, who say U.S. interrogators should be viewed as following the Geneva Conventions as long as they do not engage in "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment barred by a 2005 federal law. The administration and its backers in Congress also want to allow military commissions to be able to convict suspected terrorists after viewing classified evidence that the suspects can't see.
At a news conference Friday, President Bush said he would object to any legislation that would jeopardize the CIA's "invaluable" program for interrogating suspected terrorists.
"The intelligence community must be able to tell me that the bill Congress sends to my desk will allow this vital program to continue," Bush said.
In his radio address Saturday, Bush said his proposal provides clear rules for U.S. personnel involved in detaining and questioning alleged terrorists held by the CIA.
"The information the Central Intelligence Agency has obtained by questioning men like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks) has helped disrupt terrorist plots, including planned strikes inside the United States and on a U.S. Marine base in East Africa, an American consulate in Pakistan and Britain's Heathrow Airport," Bush said.
"This CIA program has saved American lives, and the lives of people in other countries," he said.
Bush's comments were a challenge to McCain, Graham and Warner, who want U.S. soldiers and operatives to strictly follow the Geneva Conventions when interrogating prisoners. They also want stronger legal protections for enemy combatants and to make it harder for U.S. prosecutors to use classified intelligence in the courtroom without sharing it with the defendants on trial.
One way or another, "we're set up for a collision," predicted Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who backs the Bush plan and has been an outspoken critic of the proposal by McCain, Graham and Warner.
Senate Democrats have been content to mostly sit back and watch Republicans fight among themselves, though most, if not all, of the chamber's Democrats are expected ultimately to line up behind the three. A handful of Republicans, including Susan Collins of Maine, also support the trio.
Cornyn said the three senators' backgrounds and engaging personalities -- Graham and McCain are regulars on Sunday morning TV talk shows -- are what make them such formidable opponents.
Given their pro-military voting records and their own military backgrounds, the three have unmatched credentials when it comes to issues involving military justice. Their campaign has weakened what Republican Senate aides hoped would be a chance to use the congressional debates on this issue to claim that Democrats were weak on terrorism, in advance of the Nov. 7 elections.
McCain warns that if the United States doesn't strictly follow the Geneva Conventions, including the treaty's ban on "outrages upon personal dignity," other nations could follow suit with captured U.S. soldiers.
"Weakening the Geneva protections is not only unnecessary, but would set an example to other countries, with less respect for basic human rights, that they could issue their own legislative 'reinterpretations,' " McCain said in a statement released Friday. "This puts our military personnel and others directly at risk in this and future wars."
Graham also said lawmakers aren't just deciding, in a vacuum, what legal rights and protections to give suspected terrorists. They're effectively deciding how other countries will treat American captives.
"Whatever we do will (either) lead the way for the world, set an example we can be proud of, be a shining light for people to follow, or we can set -- by cutting legal corners -- policies that will come back to haunt us," Graham said.
Graham and McCain have been in a similar position before. Last year, the two successfully battled the administration and won approval of a ban on torture.
Unlike anyone else in the Senate, McCain has personal experience with torture. The Arizona Republican was beaten and interrogated regularly during his years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. McCain insists that using torture as an interrogation technique only results in bad intelligence "because, under torture, a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop."
Warner has emerged as a surprising ally of McCain and Graham. Warner generally stands with Republicans on defense and national security issues when the two parties are divided but he has been aggressive in investigating the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
The three senators already have forced the administration to change course on plans for trying detainees. The three Republicans were among the first voices in the Congress to urge the administration to adapt the existing military courts-martial system for trying suspected terrorists. During a July hearing, Graham bluntly warned administration lawyers that if they did not take that approach, "it's going to be a long, hot summer."
Ultimately, the Bush administration sent Congress a plan for commissions that generally tracks the courts-martial procedures.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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