Ladies and Gentlemen, if this news turns out to be true, it is the stupidiest thing ever! Yesterday the US senate, in an extraordinary move, passed the measure forbidding torture by 90 to nine, with most Republicans backing the measure. Most senators said the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal and similar allegations at the Guantanamo Bay prison rendered the result a foregone conclusion. Ok, that sounds good right? Well, according to the British Newspaper The Telegraph Bush “plegded” yesterday that he will veto the law.
The vote, according to the Telegraph, was one of the largest and best supported congressional revolts during President George W Bush’s five years in office and shocked the White House. The man behind the legislation, Republican Senator John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner in Vietnam, said the move was backed by American soldiers. His amendment would prohibit the “cruel, inhumane or degrading” treatment of prisoners in the custody of America’s defence department.
Apparantly the amendment was attached to the $440 billion (£247 billion) defence spending bill and if Bush vetoes the amendment, he would have to veto the entire bill. “That would leave America’s armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan short of cash as early as the middle of next month,” according to the Telegraph.
If Bush does veto the bill, it would be his first veto during nearly five years in office, according to CNN, who does not call it an anti-torture law, but “a Pentagon spending bill that sets standards for the treatment of prisoners in U.S. military custody.”
Clearly you have to wonder in what world Bush thinks he is living? Is he trying to put himself above the law? He really is alienating the US from the rest of the world. Like when the US was defying the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
I guess his idea is: torture gets results? (more political cartoons)
