Congratulations, America. Our tax dollars now pay for torture.
The United States will be the first nation on Earth to authorize violations of the Geneva Conventions.
Here’s the text of the “Agreement on Common Article 3” in PDF, for torture-defending assholes like
It only takes a single read-through to see that the Senators have capitulated entirely, that the U.S. will hereafter violate the Geneva Conventions. In addition to the elimination of habeas rights in section 7a, the bill would delegate (in Section 8) the authority to interpret “the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions” “for the United States,” to the fucking President (except that the bill itself would define certain “grave breaches” of Common Article 3 to be war crimes… small comfort there, since it would permit most of the more coercive CIA techniques to continue.). So this language would literally cut the legs out from under Supreme Court decisions like the Hamdan decision, by saying that the President alone has the authority to interpret. Yes, that’s unbelievable — read it yourself. It’s there in black-and-white.
And in the worst part of the bill, for purposes going far beyond the questions of torture and interrogation — section 7 would preclude courts altogether from ever interpreting the Geneva Conventions — any part of them — by providing that “no person may invoke the Geneva Conventions or any protocols thereto in any habeas or civil action or proceeding to which the United States, or a current or former officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States, is a party as a source of rights, in any court of the United States or its States or territories.”
I can hear the NeoCon assholes (like
Yeah….that’s true….it’s not like these provisions are ever going to accidentally result in the torture of an innocent man, now will they?
Every Conservative voter who put these criminals in power should hang their heads in shame. History will judge you as the ones who destroyed what this country once stood for.