The Highlander

Last month, October 7 to be exact, the Senate by a vote of 97-0 passed the Department of Defense Appropriation Act of 2006. On the $440 billion spending bill, one would think there would not be much controversy; after all, how controversial can a bill which passes unanimously in a bitterly divided Senate be? Well, the answer is that under normal circumstances, it would not be controversial at all, but thanks to Republican Senator John McCain the Bush administration now finds itself in a bit of a conundrum.

The reason is because two days prior to its passage, Sen. McCain proposed amendment #1977. According to the Senator, the amendment would first establish a uniform standard for Department of Defense detainees, and secondly would "prohibit cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in the detention of the U.S. government." The same day it was proposed the amendment passed by a vote of 90-9.

The problem for the Bush administration is that it has explicitly rejected this policy in fighting the war on terrorism. Furthermore, the President has previously promised to veto any legislation that contains this type of language. In a public statement the White House has claimed that it would impede their ability to bring terrorists to justice.

The situation is even more complicated by the fact that the original version of the bill passed in the House (by a vote of 398-19) did not include that specific amendment. When this happens, it is dealt with by a conference committee consisting of members from both Houses of Congress. However, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) has not yet officially appointed any conferees. This of course is leading Democrats to accuse Rep. Hastert of trying to protect the Vice President's office, which has been lobbying hard against the amendment, from yet another embarrassing defeat.

All of these events provide me with a lot of initial reactions, almost none of them positive. First of all, from a humanistic perspective, does anyone else find it appalling that the United States Military doesn't already abide by strict rules forbidding cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of its detainees? If we are going to try and claim any sort of moral high ground in this global war on terror, we must hold ourselves to the highest standards. The scandals that have emerged dealing with our treatment of prisoners, though not widespread, from a public relations perspective are disastrous and we must do everything we can to prevent anything like that from ever happening again.

On top of that, as Sen. McCain pointed out, the information gained from sources who have been tortured is inaccurate anyway, because, "under torture a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop." Also, if we engage in torture tactics in this war, this will only endanger our POWs in this and future wars, since other countries may choose to follow the Bush Administration's example of winning by breaking the rules, and subject our own soldiers to torture tactics.

There are so many reasons to support this amendment I can't possibly run through them all, and luckily the large majority of people in Congress recognize them as well. This even has overwhelming support from Republicans in Congress. It is absolutely unacceptable for Speaker Hastert to try to shield the Vice President's office from embarrassment on this issue. They brought all the embarrassment up to this point on themselves, and they deserve to be embarrassed again on this issue, since they are on the absolutely most radical and unacceptable side. Once the conference committee finally does meet, there is not much doubt that the amendment will be adopted in the final bill. Then, the President will face two choices, one is to use his first veto which will almost certainly be overridden, or go back on his word and sign the bill into law. Either way the Administration will get a long overdue lesson in humility.

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