Depriving an entire branch of government of its ability to exercise meaningful oversight is a decidedly wrong course to take. |
For three years now, the administration has been sending the message that cruel and inhuman treatment is OK. Now the McCain amendment is going to wipe all of that away. It reminds everybody who's on the front line that the rules are the rules, and if somebody tells you they don't apply, don't listen to them. |
He's tried very hard. But everybody recognized that he was having to go up against people who both outrank him and were deeply involved setting the policies that he was challenging. |
I just wish we could get through to people that picking up a Salvadoran general in Miami and telling him he has to retire in Costa Rica is not a punishment. Yeah, you're evil, but you can go be evil somewhere else. |
I think things are really turning on this. |
It makes you wonder: Has DOD learned nothing from this debacle? |
Our findings reveal a picture of military discipline from which the doctrine of command responsibility is completely absent. |
That's why the McCain amendment is important, and that's why this language they're floating now would gut it, |
The battle about what that provision means has only just begun. |
The House and Senate have now spoken loud and clear, with a single message ? the United States will not permit cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. |
There's been a failure of accountability for detainee abuse at the command level. Without accountability up the chain of command, there won't be deterrence, and the torture and abuses we've documented likely will continue. |
This is what got us into problems in the first place. |