President Must Uphold Constitution: Not Alter It
This past week in the United States Senate, four members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, with the backing of three former chairmen of the Joint-Chiefs, opposed President Bush and his lackeys’ personal pleas to sign off on the legislation that would narrowly define how the United States should be obligated towards Article Three of the Geneva Convention. With the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, in an unpublicized memo to the Central Intelligence Agency, informing the agency that no United States detainee “shall be subject to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment” as defined throughout various laws of the Union. With the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Department of Defense on board with the Counsel’s memo, CIA Director Hayden quickly sent a memo throughout the agency that credited the agency’s interrogation techniques and even with the President endorsing such techniques.
The Senate Armed Services Committee approved a bill which would not give the international community the impression the United States is making up their own rules as the game is being played, but more so playing by the rules which we agreed to since the beginning of the game.
The President remains steadfast, as he has on many of his issues of national security, stating with the importance of allowing intelligence agencies and officers the latitude to conduct interrogations in their own way in order to gain information needed to save American lives.
There are several key and important questions on which the President has failed to question himself. The first question being the implication to which our allies and enemies see our resistance to comply with international law that we signed. The second question being, how might other sovereign governments treat both military and civilians in possible interrogations?
The international community would not only be questioning our compliance with standard international law but, as former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff Colin Powell stated in a letter to former Prisoner-of-War Senator John McCain – “the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.” Powell continues by believing “to redefine Common Article Three would add to those doubts…” and “furthermore it would put our own troops at risk.”
The Bush Administration had a cause five years ago. The mission was simple – combat those who planned, orchestrated, and executed the attacks on the United States on 9/11. [image2_left]Unfortunately, our Commander-in-Chief’s address to our men and women in uniform that stated “mission completed” was incorrect. Somehow this administration was clever enough to connect on a jagged line Saddam Hussein, al-qaeda, 9/11, and Osama Bin Laden all together.
I would argue that the President’s National Security Council cut the pieces together in order for them to conveniently fit. Nonetheless, we as a nation need to remember our core values and what America stands for. We need to remember those fighting overseas for our security stateside. We need to remember those who gave their lives for our safety. Article Three of the Geneva Convention has been fine, in my opinion, since the signing of the international law by the United States. It has only been since this President has come into office that the role of the executive has been modified wherein they now believe they may change any and all laws seen fit. I was always taught “the law is the law, and the law is the law of the land.” Well Mr. President, you swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the laws of this great nation. Now do it!
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