Torture Compromise

An agreement has been reached between the Administration and the Graham/McCain team on the bill intended to limit US interpretation of Geneva Convention

Read the New York Times write-up here.

A positive feature of the new bill: It spells out in detail a number of specific examples of what should be considered violations of Geneva Convention Common Article 3 (the part banning torture).

Cause for concern: The bill is described as functioning to prevent "grave violations" of the Geneva Convention.

Hmmm...

If the rule is "Don't torture people," wouldn't any violation be a grave violation?

Another question, prompted by reader Becky Boggs' comment on an earlier post of mine: "Where is the national outrage? Are we really a nation unwilling to question policies that endorse humiliation and torture of human beings?"

To that I would add, why would you ever leave it up to one party to critique their own party's priorities. I have a lot of respect for John McCain, but it shouldn't be up to a handful of decent Republican senators to confront the president.

I know it's fun to sit back and let Republicans fight with each other when they're usually such a united front, but when you do that, when you don't get a non-Republican dog in the fight, you end up still letting a bunch of guys on the right decide what the solution to the problems will be.