Not Surprisingly

The media gets it wrong again. The editorials about the deal reached yesterday between the White House and the Senators who were blocking terrorism legislation (led by John McCain) are extremely unhappy that "abuse" will continue.

THE GOOD NEWS about the agreement reached yesterday between the Bush administration and Republican senators on the detention, interrogation and trial of accused terrorists is that Congress will not — as President Bush had demanded — pass legislation that formally reinterprets U.S. compliance with the Geneva Conventions. Nor will the Senate explicitly endorse the administration's use of interrogation techniques that most of the world regards as cruel and inhumane, if not as outright torture. Trials of accused terrorists will be fairer than the commission system outlawed in June by the Supreme Court.

The bad news is that Mr. Bush, as he made clear yesterday, intends to continue using the CIA to secretly detain and abuse certain terrorist suspects. He will do so by issuing his own interpretation of the Geneva Conventions in an executive order and by relying on questionable Justice Department opinions that authorize such practices as exposing prisoners to hypothermia and prolonged sleep deprivation. Under the compromise agreed to yesterday, Congress would recognize his authority to take these steps and prevent prisoners from appealing them to U.S. courts. The bill would also immunize CIA personnel from prosecution for all but the most serious abuses and protect those who in the past violated U.S. law against war crimes.

The New York Times is, of course, even more strident. They both blame Bush, of course. They both charge that the US will be violating the Geneva Conventions.They both blame the Bush administration. In actuality, both editorials give a pass to the "principled stand" that McCain and company took.

That "principled stand" boils down to a complete washing of hands of any meaningful Congressional involvement in any of this. The media is letting them off the hook, too.

Mr. Bush wanted Congress to formally approve these practices and to declare them consistent with the Geneva Conventions. It will not. But it will not stop him either, if the legislation is passed in the form agreed on yesterday. Mr. Bush will go down in history for his embrace of torture and bear responsibility for the enormous damage that has caused.

They continue to attack using harsh and loaded language that is not at all accurate. All they are doing here is giving more misinformation that America's enemies can point to. What the administration is doing is not torture, nor is it violation of the Geneva Conventions. The Conventions desperately need to be amended to address the reality of institutionalized illegal combatants – which is what we are really dealing with.