Bush Threatens To Veto Defense Spending

• October 7, 2005

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The White House will maintain its threatened veto of the defense budget if an amendment expressly barring military forces from torturing and abusing prisoners remains, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
“We have put out a Statement of Administration Policy saying that his advisors would recommend that he vetoes it if it contains such language,” McClellan said.
“The House legislation doesn’t include that language. It will now go to a conference committee. We will continue working with Congress to address this issue,” he added.
The US Senate on Wednesday explicitly barred US soldiers from torturing or maltreating prisoners in a measure outlining strict military interrogation guidelines that passed overwhelmingly by 90 votes to nine.
The measure — an amendment to a defense spending bill being debated in Congress this week — aims to prevent “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of persons under custody or control of the United States government.”

Here’s the problem with this legislation: Who gets to define “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment? To some bleeding hearts in this country, loud Christina Aguilera music and rooms that are uncomfortably hot or cold are considered “cruel” treatment.
To the rest of us its just effective interrogation techniques.
I think the President absolutely must veto any legislation that would hamstring our ability to gather intelligence from detained foreign combatants. We should not, cannot, but our country or its citizens at risk for the sake of political correctness.
Update:
Reader/contributor Gene emails:

What I’m against in this legislation is it takes the teeth out of our ability to extract information from people who make a living out of blowing themselves up.

Exactly.

Tags: Politics

http://Array Dave

Who gets to define “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment?

The Army

SEC. __. UNIFORM STANDARDS FOR THE INTERROGATION OF PERSONS UNDER THE DETENTION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.

(a) IN GENERAL.–No person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.
Sigivald

I do wish any of the reports would give us the exact language of the bill, but I’ve given up expecting that in law reporting in any case.

I think your commenter is right, though, if that’s what the language is; if the bill banned only specific things, or left it up to a Senate committee to decide what to ban and when, with the DoD providing input (as to what they do, why, and what’s effective), I couldn’t see any plausible objections.

Sure would be neat to see the exact language, but I’m so sick of using the LOC website to try and look things up …
http://sayanythingblog.com/2005/10/08/john-mccain-wants-to-give-the-terrori Say Anything » John McCa

&heellip; Previously I suggested that the President should follow through on his threat to veto the defense spending bill currently making its way through Congress if it reaches his desk with the McCain amendment still intact within its pages. &heellip;
http://northerngleaner.blogspot.com/ Gene Redlin

Fundamentally on a humanitarian level I’m against torture. I wish we could among ourselves agree NOT to do this. Maybe the Lyndee England thing was a way to say to our soldiers, watch it, there is a line, we won’t tell you where it is but there is one, be careful out there.

What I’m against in this legislation is it takes the teeth out of our ability to extract information from people who make a living out of blowing themselves up.

My wife works in the local school system. She works with troubled kids. The kids know the rules say that they can’t lay a hand on the kid, they can’t spank, can’t make them stand in the corner on one foot or run laps as punishment. All the teeth have been removed in codicils kids read. So Discipline suffers. They can’t yell at them even any more.

I want it so we know not to do this (torture) but I want the bad guys of Alqueda not to know this. I want them to fear for having their manhood cut off at any time and we get a sharp knife we wave around. It will get so much more info than giving them a time out and withholding the fudge bars on Tuesdays.

How do you do this? I don’t know, but I hope the President has the guts to veto this bill. It’s wrong in it’s effect, not in it’s intent. I mean OK, we’ll go along with your lame pick for the supreme court (Mr. President) if you will just tank this lame bill.

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