Thursday, October 06, 2005

Thank you, Senator McCain

Senator John McCain (R–AZ) and a couple of other Republican Senators led the charge to get a bipartisan consensus on a bill to reinforce that the United States will not use uncivilized interrogation methods.

If indeed we are in a war to protect our civilization and our way of life, then we must not do the work of destroying them ourselves. This bill, a rider on the DoD spending authorization, will go a long way to assuring the world, as well as the American people, that our soldiers will not become torturers, and that we will not stoop as low as the likes of Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran.

President Bush has threatened to veto the Pentagon spending bill — what would be his first veto in over four years in office — if it contains language requiring that interrogations comply with the standards in the Army Field Manual, because doing so "would limit the President's ability as commander-in-chief to effectively carry out the war on terrorism." [quote from Press Secretary Scott McClellan, 2005-10-06]

Yet another empty veto threat from the empty suit in the Oval Office.