Senate committee approves detainee measure opposed by Bush

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON — In a deepening split between key Republican lawmakers and the White House, a rebellious Senate committee defied President Bush today and approved its own legislation on the treatment and prosecution of suspected terrorists.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, pushed the measure through his panel by a 15-9 vote. He was joined by two other GOP lawmakers, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., an ex-naval aviator who spent nearly six years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C,, a military lawyer and Air Force Reservist.

The issue will go to the Senate floor for a vote as early as next week.

The president’s measure would go further than the Senate package in allowing classified evidence to be withheld from defendants in terror trials, using coerced testimony and protecting U.S. interrogators against legal prosecution for using methods that violate the Geneva Conventions.

That’s three Republicans on the Armed Services Committee, including the Chairman, who defied the party line. Should they be looking over their shoulders now?

Then there is this, also in the article above:

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who supports the administration’s bill, says he does not think it would endanger U.S. troops because “al-Qaeda doesn’t take any prisoners. The prisoners they do take they behead.”

And this:

In a sign of the sharp divisions within the Republican Party over the issue, House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, has strongly backed the Bush proposal and scheduled a House vote on it for next week.

“The American people are not going to provide terrorists with the same kinds of access to justice that American citizens are provided,” Boehner said.

So as far as Boehner is concerned, they are already terrorists? Then why bother with the trials at all? Why not just move ahead with the summary executions? Then we can truly be no better than those we claim to fight.

Follow link above for the rest of the story.

Tags: military tribunals, politics