Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Just Waterboarding Under the Bridge

Just Waterboarding Under the Bridge 
 
by William Fisher 
U.S. President George W. Bush appeared headed toward another train wreck
with Congress as he carried out his threat to veto an intelligence bill
that would have banned the Central Intelligence Agency from using
waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" in questioning
terrorism suspects.
The bill, passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate,
would have limited the CIA to using 19 less-aggressive interrogation
tactics outlined in a U.S. Army Field Manual. The measure would have ended
the use of simulated drowning, temperature extremes, and other harsh
tactics that the CIA used on al-Qaeda prisoners after the Sept. 11, 2001
attacks. 
Congress does not appear to have the votes to override the Bush veto,
which he announced in his weekly radio address on Saturday. His support
comes principally from Senate Republicans, including the Republican
presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain. 
McCain was one of the principal authors and champions of the Detainee
Treatment Act of 2006, which banned harsh interrogation techniques by the
U.S. military, but did not cover the CIA. President Bush signed the bill
into law, but issued a "signing statement" claiming executive authority to
ignore the law if it was necessary for national security purposes. 
"Staging a mock execution by inducing the misperception of drowning is a
clear violation" of laws and treaties, McCain said at the time. 
But McCain sided with the Bush administration on the waterboarding ban by
the CIA. He said the measure went too far by applying military standards
to intelligence agencies. He also said current laws already forbid
waterboarding. 
Human rights activists have been sharply critical of McCain's vote.
Typical is Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal
advocacy group that has defended a number of detainees at Guantanamo Naval
Base in Cuba and mobilized pro-bono legal representation for many others. 
He told IPS, "That Senator McCain voted against the legislation ending
torture – which included a ban on water torture – gives lie to the
assertion that he cares about fundamental human rights. He is a craven
opportunist and worse, an aider and abettor of torture." 
The two Democratic presidential contenders, Senators Hillary Rodham
Clinton and Barack Obama, have said waterboarding is clearly illegal and
should be banned, but neither voted on the Senate measure because they
were campaigning elsewhere. 
The Senate passed the bill during the same week in which the Bush
administration announced plans to try six prisoners at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, for alleged involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. Five of the six
were subjected to harsh CIA tactics. 
Bush's veto is the latest battle in the administration's war with Congress
on the limitations placed by the U.S. Constitution on the executive branch
of government. Under the Constitution, Congress is a co-equal branch, as
is the judiciary. Bush has claimed that the Constitution requires him to
protect and defend the U.S. people, and that this responsibility requires
greatly expanded powers for the White House. 
Another ongoing power battle with Congress involved the president's
authorization of the National Security Agency (NSA), one of 16 U.S.
intelligence organizations, to conduct surveillance of telephone and
e-mail messages without court approval. In 1978, Congress passed the
Foreign Surveillance Act (FISA), which set up a special court and required
the administration to secure warrants from that court based on a showing
of probable cause. Without approval from the FISA court, President Bush
launched a "terrorist surveillance" program shortly after the attacks of
9/11, recruiting private telecommunications companies to assist in that
effort. 
Congressional action on a FISA revision is currently being blocked by a
debate about whether these telecom companies should receive "retroactive
immunity" from prosecution, though President Bush claims they broke no
laws. 
Waterboarding has become a proxy for these types of expanded executive
branch powers. A Justice Department (DOJ) senior official, Steven G.
Bradbury, acting head of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, recently
joined his boss, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, in testifying to
congress that "there has been no determination by the Justice Department
that the use of waterboarding, under any circumstances, would be lawful
under current law." 
Waterboarding, a form of mock drowning, has been prosecuted as torture in
the U.S. for more than a century. After World War Two, the U.S. prosecuted
Japanese soldiers who used the technique against U.S. prisoners of war 
But human rights groups and civil liberties advocates argue that
waterboarding amounts to illegal torture. 
Prof. David Cole of the Georgetown University law school told IPS, "It is
a tragedy of historic dimensions that the president of the United States
has now stood up for torture. After repeatedly insisting that 'we don't
torture,' President Bush has vetoed a bill that would have held the
executive branch accountable to that promise. We can only hope that
Congress has the will to override this bill, and that the American people
have the will to elect a president who is truly committed to getting the
CIA out of the torture business." Cole is one of the nation's preeminent
Constitutional scholars. 
His view is echoed by Mary Shaw of Amnesty International USA, who told IPS
that "Use of waterboarding and other 'enhanced interrogation techniques'
is in clear violation of several domestic and international laws and
treaties. The Bush administration must be stopped from using the 'war on
terror' as an excuse to violate basic human rights. Congress must not let
the veto stand." 
A view about what Congress can do in the face of the president's veto was
expressed by the CCR'S Ratner. He told IPS that Congress "does not need a
veto-proof two-thirds majority to cut funds off from any U.S. agency,
e.g., the CIA that engages in practices not authorized by the Army Field
Manual. It simply does not need to fund torture – 51 votes are enough to
end funding in the Senate or a similar bare majority in the House." 
"The charade of a Democratic Congress blaming Bush alone for the torture
program is just that – a charade," he added. 
The Army manual forbids eight harsh techniques, including waterboarding,
mock executions, use of beatings and electric shocks, forced nakedness and
sexual acts, and causing hypothermia or heat injuries. 
Some of the most vocal criticism of the Bush administration's stance on
torture has come from former military leaders. More than 30 three- and
four-star retired generals have urged the adoption of a single
interrogation standard, and warned that the use of abusive interrogation
techniques is both ineffective and unwise. 
The latest to take this position is retired Brig. Gen. James Cullen,
former chief judge of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. He recently
told Amy Goodman, a radio talk show host, "We hear a lot of arguments to
try to justify 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' but we know exactly
what we're talking about. It's torture in different packaging." He said
"torture is just a stupid way of going about it." 
Other military leaders have taken similar positions. Gen. David Petraeus,
commanding general of multinational forces in Iraq, recently called the
military's interrogation techniques an effective and humane way to gather
information from the enemy. 
(Inter Press Service)
 
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#_Supponendo che la mozione sia stata presentata da un senatore democratico, 
mi pare abbastanza strano che questa non sia stata presentata con piu` 
probabilita`di successo nella prossima legislatura.
Un'altra sorpresa e`che "l'eroico" senatore torturato in Vietnam si opponga 
alla cancellazione di questa procedura.
Giano