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Legalized Torture, Reloaded
New York Times Editorial
10/26/05 "New
York Times" -- -- Amid all the natural and political
disasters it faces, the White House is certainly tireless in its
effort to legalize torture. This week, Vice President Dick Cheney
proposed a novel solution for the moral and legal problems raised by
the use of American soldiers to abuse prisoners and the practice of
turning captives over to governments willing to act as proxies in
doing the torturing. Mr. Cheney wants to make it legal for the
Central Intelligence Agency to do this wet work.
Mr. Cheney's proposal was made in secret to Senator John McCain, the
Arizona Republican who won the votes of 89 other senators this month
to require the civilized treatment of prisoners at camps run by
America's military and intelligence agencies. Mr. McCain's
legislation, an amendment to the Defense Department budget bill,
would ban the "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of prisoners.
In other words, it would impose age-old standards of democracy and
decency on the new prisons.
President Bush's threat to veto the entire military budget over this
issue was bizarre enough by itself, considering that the amendment
has the support of more than two dozen former military leaders,
including Colin Powell. They know that torture doesn't produce
reliable intelligence and endangers Americans' lives.
But Mr. Cheney's proposal was even more ludicrous. It would give the
president the power to allow government agencies outside the Defense
Department (the administration has in mind the C.I.A.) to mistreat
and torture prisoners as long as that behavior was part of
"counterterrorism operations conducted abroad" and they were not
American citizens. That would neatly legalize the illegal prisons
the C.I.A. is said to be operating around the world and obviate the
need for the torture outsourcing known as extraordinary rendition.
It also raises disturbing questions about Iraq, which the Bush
administration has falsely labeled a counterterrorism operation.
Mr. McCain was right to reject this absurd proposal. The House
should reject it as well.
Copyright New York Times
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