"It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our
country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an
artificually induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an
incessant propaganda of fear." : General Douglas MacArthur, Speech,
May 15, 1951

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/forums/

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/index.cfm?
Page=Article&ID=5243VICE PRESIDENT Cheney is aggressively pursuing an
initiative that may be unprecedented for an elected official of the
executive branch: He is proposing that Congress legally authorize
human rights abuses by Americans. "Cruel, inhuman and degrading"
treatment of prisoners is banned by an international treaty
negotiated by the Reagan administration and ratified by the United
States. The State Department annually issues a report criticizing
other governments for violating it. Now Mr. Cheney is asking Congress
to approve legal language that would allow the CIA to commit such
abuses against foreign prisoners it is holding abroad. In other
words, this vice president has become an open advocate of torture.

His position is not just some abstract defense of presidential power.
The CIA is holding an unknown number of prisoners in secret detention
centers abroad. In violation of the Geneva Conventions, it has
refused to register those detainees with the International Red Cross
or to allow visits by its inspectors. Its prisoners
have "disappeared," like the victims of some dictatorships. The
Justice Department and the White House are known to have approved
harsh interrogation techniques for some of these people,
including "waterboarding," or simulated drowning; mock execution; and
the deliberate withholding of pain medication. CIA personnel have
been implicated in the deaths during interrogation of at least four
Afghan and Iraqi detainees. Official investigations have indicated
that some aberrant practices by Army personnel in Iraq originated
with the CIA. Yet no CIA personnel have been held accountable for
this record, and there has never been a public report on the agency's
performance.

It's not surprising that Mr. Cheney would be at the forefront of an
attempt to ratify and legalize this shameful record. The vice
president has been a prime mover behind the Bush administration's
decision to violate the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention
Against Torture and to break with decades of past practice by the
U.S. military. These decisions at the top have led to hundreds of
documented cases of abuse, torture and homicide in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Mr. Cheney's counsel, David S. Addington, was reportedly
one of the principal authors of a legal memo justifying the torture
of suspects. This summer Mr. Cheney told several Republican senators
that President Bush would veto the annual defense spending bill if it
contained language prohibiting the use of cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment by any U.S. personnel.

The senators ignored Mr. Cheney's threats, and the amendment,
sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), passed this month by a vote
of 90 to 9. So now Mr. Cheney is trying to persuade members of a
House-Senate conference committee to adopt language that would not
just nullify the McCain amendment but would formally adopt cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment as a legal instrument of U.S. policy.
The Senate's earlier vote suggests that it will not allow such a
betrayal of American values. As for Mr. Cheney: He will be remembered
as the vice president who campaigned for torture.

Sign the Open Letter
For an Independent Commission on Torture

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