Senator John McCain, one of the strongest supporters
of the war in Iraq, has sponsored a legislative
amendment that would prohibit the ”cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment” of prisoners in the custody of
the U.S. military. Last week the Senate approved the
amendment by the overwhelming vote of 90 to 9.

This was not a matter of Democrats vs. Republicans, or
left against right. Joining Senator McCain in his push
for clear and unequivocal language banning the abusive
treatment of prisoners were Senator John Warner of
Virginia, the Republican chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, and Senator Lindsey Graham of
South Carolina, a former military lawyer who is also a
Republican and an influential member of the committee.
Both are hawks on the war.

Also lining up in support were more than two dozen
retired senior military officers, including two former
chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell
and John Shalikashvili.

So who would you expect to remain out of step with
this important march toward sanity, the rule of law
and the continuation of a longstanding American
commitment to humane values?

Did you say President Bush? Well, that would be
correct.

The president, who has trouble getting anything right,
is trying to block this effort to outlaw the abusive
treatment of prisoners.

Senator McCain’s proposal is an amendment to the huge
defense authorization bill. The White House has sent
out signals that Mr. Bush might veto the entire bill
if that’s what it takes to defeat the amendment.

The Washington Post summed the matter up in an
editorial that said:

”Let’s be clear: Mr. Bush is proposing to use the
first veto of his presidency on a defense bill needed
to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan so
that he can preserve the prerogative to subject
detainees to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
In effect, he threatens to declare to the world his
administration’s moral bankruptcy.”

Last Wednesday, Senator McCain rose on the Senate
floor and said:

”The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted
in 1948, states simply that ‘No one shall be subject
to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment.’ The International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, to which the U.S. is a signatory,
states the same. The binding Convention Against
Torture, negotiated by the Reagan administration and
ratified by the Senate, prohibits cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment.

”On last year’s [Department of Defense] authorization
bill, the Senate passed a bipartisan amendment
reaffirming that no detainee in U.S. custody can be
subject to torture or cruel treatment, as the U.S. has
long defined those terms. All of this seems to be
common sense, in accordance with longstanding American
values.

”But since last year’s [defense] bill, a strange
legal determination was made that the prohibition in
the Convention Against Torture against cruel, inhuman,
or degrading treatment does not legally apply to
foreigners held outside the U.S. They can, apparently,
be treated inhumanely. This is the [Bush]
administration’s position, even though Judge Abe
Sofaer, who negotiated the Convention Against Torture
for President Reagan, said in a recent letter that the
Reagan administration never intended the prohibition
against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment to apply
only on U.S. soil.”

The McCain amendment would end the confusion and the
perverse hunt for loopholes in the laws that could
somehow be interpreted as allowing the sadistic
treatment of human beings in U.S. custody.

Senator McCain met last week with Capt. Ian Fishback,
a West Point graduate who was one of three former
members of the 82nd Airborne Division to come forward
with allegations, first publicly disclosed in a report
by Human Rights Watch, that members of their battalion
had routinely beaten and otherwise abused prisoners in
Iraq. In a letter that he sent to the senator before
the meeting, Captain Fishback wrote:

”Some argue that since our actions are not as
horrifying as Al Qaeda’s, we should not be concerned.
When did Al Qaeda become any type of standard by which
we measure the morality of the United States? We are
America, and our actions should be held to a higher
standard, the ideals expressed in documents such as
the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution.”