McCain and torture

Today I’m finishing up my three-day look at Bush’s recent veto of a bill that would forbid the CIA from using torture. On Sunday, I talked about the importance of overriding the veto. Yesterday, I talked about why torture is a bad idea, as well as why the Bush-Cheney regime is so staunch in its defence. In both posts, I talked about John McCain, and how he should be at the forefront of urging that Congress override the veto. Today, I’m talking specifically about that aspect.

Everyone knows that John McCain was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, and that during that time he was tortured. So when in 2005 he planned to introduce an amendment banning the use of torture, he had the complete moral authority to take on the Bush-Cheney regime. It didn’t turn out that way.

As soon as McCain made his move, the White House moved to block him. Dick Cheney personally lobbied Congress, and instructed the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate at the time, Bill Frist (because Republicans controlled Congress), to ensure that no bill came before the Senate that McCain could attach his amendment to. This ploy worked for months, and most media attention was distracted by the disaster of hurricane Katrina.

But the need to pass a military spending bill meant there could be no more delays, and McCain introduced his amendment. The White House announced its opposition, and declared that Bush would use his first-ever veto on the bill if the amendment was attached. The Senate voted 90-9 in favour of McCain’s amendment.

The battle moved to the US House, where Republicans maintained tight control over the process. The version of the bill they passed didn’t contain the McCain amendment. As the two houses worked to resolve the different versions, Cheney personally lobbied them to drop the McCain Amendment or, at least, to exempt the CIA. This would have had the effect of making torture by the CIA legal for the first time ever. McCain himself said it would be better to have no bill at all than to legalise torture by the CIA.

Then, things started to change. The media revealed the existence of the “Extraordinary Rendition” programme in which the CIA would ship people they deemed suspects to third countries to be tortured, in part because the Bush-Cheney regime believed that it was legal for them to use torture as long as it wasn’t on US soil. Citizens of America’s European allies were in an uproar to learn that their countries were staging points (or worse) for these secret CIA operations, which were illegal under both international and local law, as well as US law.

Amid growing opposition to the Bush-Cheney regime’s pro-torture positions, the US House voted 308 to 122 in favour of the torture ban. The margins in both houses were so huge that it was clear that they could override the threatened Bush veto.

So Bush instead announced he would sign the amended bill, and invited McCain and Sen. John Warner to the White House for photos. He tried to make it sound as if he’d always agreed with McCain. So the battle seemed won.

Then, on Friday December 30, 2005, the White House announced Bush had signed the bill. It got little notice. Getting no notice at all was another statement that Bush had issued a “signing statement” claiming that he didn’t have to obey the law.

McCain and Warner issued a statement that they would exercise “strict oversight” to monitor what the Bush-Cheney regime did. However, in the Congress controlled by Republicans loyal to Bush-Cheney, this didn’t happen. As far as I can determine, McCain never said one word about this in the years since.

Which brings us to today. If Bush had signed the current bill, he would’ve issued a signing statement again claiming he was immune from obeying the law. He vetoed it because he’s sure that Congress won’t override it. Which means that if Congress does override, it will for the first time place legal constraints on the Bush-Cheney regime, and open up the members of it, or the CIA, to prosecution if they defy the law.

All of which makes John McCain’s silence so deafening. When he introduced his amendment, Democrats and Republicans alike backed him—strongly. When the Bush-Cheney regime claimed the right to defy the law, McCain did nothing. Now he has the chance to not only make things right, he has the chance to finally outlaw torture in a way that not even the Bush-Cheney regime can defy.

The silence seems to suggest that John is not only McSame as Bush, but the same as every other opportunistic politician devoid of principal. If the one politician in this country who has the greatest moral stature to oppose Bush-Cheney on torture refuses to do so, then we know that he doesn’t have the moral stature to be president. It’s good we know that now, while there’s still plenty of time to reject him.