Senate passes McCain bill on detainment treatment

Senate Detainment Bill Passes

Discuss?


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[edit on 6/10/2005 by Mirthful Me]

Give us something to work with.

What are your thoughts?

Well it looks like the Senate has taken things into their own hands and bypassed the White House. A good thing if you ask me, i'm tired of Bush sitting on his hands, they also just passed a bill reinforcing our troops with better armor behind Bush's back. I wish McCain would have ran for president against Bush, he seems like he has good intentions most of the time. And McCain being a POW himself I'm sure wanted this bill passed pretty quickly. Afterall how can you bring your enemy over to your side if you aren't the bigger man and treat them much better than they have treated your own countrymen. Not much to discuss here I just thought it was nice to see someone getting something done in D.C. for a change. Two really good bills passed today.

So the Senate has realised that torture and false imprisonment are not the best ways to promote freedom and justice. Good for them.

Now lets see if anything is done about this, or if the Pentagon just ships prisoners into countries where they can continue to torture them rather provided they share their info with the US.

Place your bets now...

I think UncleJoe is right . One symbolic victory of sorts is achieved, though---the main purpose of Camp X-Ray was not to gather information, it was to frighten and intimidate.
Most military folks will tell you that torture and dehumanization are a terrible way to gather information, and that any information obtained through torture is extremely unreliable. The powers that be at the Pentagon know this, just as they know that most of the people in custody at Gitmo are totally innocent. If you're bing tortured, you'll get to a point where you will say anything to make the pain stop. If you don't even know the answers to the questions you are being grilled on, you will definitely say anything.
While the Pentagon denies outright torture at Gitmo, the dehumanizing conditions that we are able to see from the outside are meant to imply that whatever is happening inside is much worse indeed. The torture that was taking place at Gitmo was for one reason and one reason alone---to intimidate, not to gather information. The stories released inmates will tell back home, compounded with the images seen on television, send out the beilligerent message "this is what happens when you mess with the USA. So don't."
The question that follows from that is---what's the point of sending that message? The typical Pentagon or neocon type of answer might be along the lines of "it projects our strength and will intimidate others from taking up arms against us, thus saving American soldiers' lives down the line." The truth , in my opinion, is much more sinister---the "brains" in the upper echelon of the military know that these tactics of fear and intimidation will anger our "enemies" all the more, just like they know that for every mother or father they kill in Iraq or Afghanistan, you get a family full of kids who will hate this country forever. I think this is what they want! The military industrial complex needs a constant and ever-growing supply of enemies in order to justify insanely bloated defense budgets, and the safest way to make sure you have enemies, as well as to know who they are and where they are coming from, is to create them yourself, through your own actions---that way, we never run out of enemies, and we know (generally speaking) who they are.
So----rounding back to the original point---if there are now laws in place to prevent some of the most egregious abuses we had seen coming out of Guantanamo, maybe the military will just give up on the whole thing, since the main objective that was served there---intimidation and fear-mongering, not intelligence-gathering---will now be more difficult to get away with. Chances are, though, that it will continue, since it's probably one of those laws passed for the purpose of easing public qualms and nothing more, and there may be no intention of enforcing it at all. In other words, it's pure window dressing.
---Ryan

Why is "the glass half full" with you people all the time, our government actually passes legislation to fix one of the problems you have been complaining about for the past year and all you can do is try to "spin" it into negativity. Shame Shame. Believe it or not there are people who believe in doing things because they are the "right" thing to do.

I'm curious as to the real reasons Bush would oppose this.

Is it this?

This amendment strives to establish uniform standards for the interrogation of prisoners and detainees...

(emphasis mine)

Would the administration prefer to keep a different set of rules for both?

More here



[edit on 6/10/05 by Tinkleflower]