My letter to John McCain
Sep. 25th, 2006 01:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumSenator,
I am disgusted. Your recent attempt to pretend you are defending prisoners of war appalls me.
The language of your bill puts it completely in the power of the president to decide what is torture (who admits to wanting to allow techniques we called toture when the Soviets used them, who admits to having his agents use those techniques), and makes it impossible (because of the court stripping language, and the retroactivity clause) for the courts to review those cases.
I am an interrogtor, and I am aghast that you, of all people, would sanction such a thing.
You have broken faith with your fellows, those who were imprisoned with you in Hanoi, and those who will be imprisoned in the future. You are breaking faith with the principles of the nation, which demand fair treatment for all; presume innoncence of the arrested and requires that we uphold not just the letter, but the spirit of the treaties we sign.
When you complain that places like the NYTimes and the ACLU are calling it sanctioning of torture, well it's clear to me that I am not one of the people you think will recognise it as making me any safer.
I think, in fact, it not only makes my job harder, but it makes my fellow soldiers less safe, and does absolutely nothing to protect the people of the United States.
Where once you had my respect, you have now earned my contempt.
I am disgusted. Your recent attempt to pretend you are defending prisoners of war appalls me.
The language of your bill puts it completely in the power of the president to decide what is torture (who admits to wanting to allow techniques we called toture when the Soviets used them, who admits to having his agents use those techniques), and makes it impossible (because of the court stripping language, and the retroactivity clause) for the courts to review those cases.
I am an interrogtor, and I am aghast that you, of all people, would sanction such a thing.
You have broken faith with your fellows, those who were imprisoned with you in Hanoi, and those who will be imprisoned in the future. You are breaking faith with the principles of the nation, which demand fair treatment for all; presume innoncence of the arrested and requires that we uphold not just the letter, but the spirit of the treaties we sign.
When you complain that places like the NYTimes and the ACLU are calling it sanctioning of torture, well it's clear to me that I am not one of the people you think will recognise it as making me any safer.
I think, in fact, it not only makes my job harder, but it makes my fellow soldiers less safe, and does absolutely nothing to protect the people of the United States.
Where once you had my respect, you have now earned my contempt.
