White House and McCain Are Near Deal on Torture Bill

[papau]

Hadley's trying to convince folks to allow legal protections for some, but not all, covert officers who handle prisoners.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/politics/07mccain.html

White House and McCain Are Near Deal on Torture Bill

By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: December 7, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 - The White House has all but abandoned its effort to persuade Senator John McCain to exempt Central Intelligence Agency employees from legislation barring inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners in American custody. But a top presidential aide continued to negotiate a deal on Tuesday that would offer covert officers some protection from prosecution, administration and Senate officials said. <snip>

Faced with that reality, administration officials said, Mr. Hadley has now retreated to seeking narrower language that could make it harder to prosecute intelligence officers charged with violating torture standards.

Mr. Bush, speaking to reporters Tuesday morning, repeated his statement that "we do not torture." He added that the administration would do all it could, within the law, to protect its citizens from terrorists. His spokesman, Scott McClellan, refused Tuesday to discuss how Mr. Bush defines torture, or to say how the United States ensures that prisoners it turns over to foreign nations are not tortured. <snip>

Mr. McCain is balking at agreeing to any kind of exemption for intelligence officials, members of his staff say. Instead, he has offered to include some language, modeled after military standards, under which soldiers can provide a defense if a "reasonable" person could have concluded that he or she was following a lawful order about how to treat prisoners.<snip>
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Meanwhile Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX), a fellow POW from Vietnam, is actively against Sen. McCain's anti-torture bill and has called the legislation, "well-intentioned but unnecessary."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/120705dnnattorture.121ccc86.html

Plano rep fights ban on torture
Sam Johnson, an ex-POW, says McCain measure risky for U.S.



09:17 PM CST on Tuesday, December 6, 2005
By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News


WASHINGTON – With the moral authority of a former prisoner of war, Sen. John McCain is pushing to ban torture. Now, one of his former cellmates in the Hanoi Hilton, Rep. Sam Johnson of Plano – whose mangled hand gives testament to the horrors he endured after being shot down in Vietnam – is working to block the measure.

Mr. Johnson has circulated a letter to colleagues arguing that the McCain proposal, which sailed through the Senate, 90-9, would needlessly hamper counter-terrorism efforts – a stance that has surprised human-rights advocates.

"I can't imagine what he's thinking," said Mark Ensalaco, director of the international studies and human rights program at the University of Dayton.

"America should never do to anyone, even our worst enemies, what the Vietnamese did to John McCain and Sam Johnson," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director of Human Rights Watch.

Mr. Johnson defended his position Tuesday, after two weeks of avoiding requests to explain his views on the McCain proposal, which he called "well-intentioned but unnecessary" and potentially dangerous. <snip>

"I'm afraid John's proposal will drastically diminish our ability to gather intelligence," he said.<snip>

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

1. 'We do not torture'

"Except when we do, which we don't, and anyway even if someone does torture accidently we won't hold them accountable because we don't torture, and besides 9-11 changed everything except torture, which we don't do, even though we'd really like to, and who is to say what torture -- which we don't do -- is anyway?"

Any "deal" this administration works out with McCain is a win for evil. You either (a) torture or (b) don't torture. It's like being pregnant -- there is no middle ground.

I guess it all comes down to what the meaning of "don't" is.

[Supersedeas]

2. no we don't but make it harder to prosecute those who do??? Hadley avoids

the mirror, I guess.