Bush Vetos Bill - Approves Torture

Congress recently acted to bring the United States in compliance with the Geneva Convention opposition to torture. The rest of the civilized world adheres to the torture ban, but although it agreed not to torture, the United States has violated this ban repeatedly during the Bush administration. Even worse, this torture has been done on the orders of high-ranking White House officials, probably even including the president.

To stop the illegal use of torture by this country, and to protect our own soldiers from being tortured, the U.S. Congress passed and sent to the president a bill that specifically outlawed the use of torture by federal agencies, including the CIA.

The bill would allow only the 19 interrogation techniques that are currently allowed in the Army Field Manual. According to the AP, the following torture techniques would not be allowed:

—Hooding prisoners or putting duct tape across their eyes.

—Stripping prisoners naked.

—Forcing prisoners to perform or mimic sexual acts.

—Beating, burning or physically hurting them in other ways.

—Subjecting prisoners to hypothermia or mock executions.

It does not allow food, water and medical treatment to be withheld. Dogs may not be used in any aspect of interrogation.

But waterboarding is the most high-profile and contentious method in question.

It involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. It has been traced back hundreds of years to the Spanish Inquisition and is condemned by nations around the world and human rights organizations as torture.

The truth is that even if it was legal, torture does not get the truth from a tortured person. All it does is get that person to tell you what you want him to say. This is probably not even close to the truth.

Worse yet, if it is OK for the United States to torture its prisoners, then it has to be OK for others to torture Americans held as prisoners. Bush's use of torture has put our own soldiers in danger all over the world. As long as we are using torture, we don't have the moral authority to ask others not to use torture techniques.

But Bush doesn't care about our soldiers, or even common decency and international laws and treaties. He just wants to give himself the same dictatorial powers he condemned in others such as Saddam. On Saturday, Bush VETOED THE ANTI-TORTURE BILL.

Once again, the Torturer-in-Chief has shamed America. Republican candidate John McCain also voted in favor of allowing torture to be used -- just more proof that if he were elected, the policies of the Bush administration would be continued.

The Democrats in Congress are going to try to override the torturer's veto, but they probably will not be able to muster the two-thirds majority needed to do that. This is one more compelling reason to vote for Democrats in November. We must elect enough Democrats to Congress to stop this nonsense.