More ACLU deception
So I'm hanging out in a coffee shop in the Piedmont district of Oakland this evening and I just read the quote of the day. Come to think of it, this is the quote of the week. From Stop the ACLU - "Tribunal/Interrogation Bill is a good deal, why? The ACLU has just condemned it."How come the moment a law comes down on terrorists the ACLU is the first group to stand in protest? Who are these people? Did al-Qaeda infiltrate their leadership? Here's their press release many of us saw coming...
| New Military Commissions Compromise Gives License to Abuse Prisoners, ACLU Says Dangerous Proposal Must Be Rejected WASHINGTON - Following announcements that an agreement has been reached between the White House and Senators John Warner (R-VA), John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on military commissions, the American Civil Liberties Union today said the compromise agreement does not protect due process, fails to meet international treaty obligations and urged lawmakers to reject the deal. The following may be attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office: "This is a compromise of America's commitment to the rule of law. The proposal would make the core protections of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions irrelevant and unenforceable. It deliberately provides a 'get out of jail free card' to the administration's top torture officials, and backdates that card nine years. These are tactics expected of repressive regimes, not the American government. "Also under the proposal, the president would have the authority to declare what is - and what is not - a grave breach of the War Crimes Act, making the president his own judge and jury. This provision would give him unilateral authority to declare certain torture and abuse legal and sound. In a telling move, during a call with reporters today, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley would not even answer a question about whether water boarding would be permitted under the agreement. "The agreement would also violate time-honored American due process standards by permitting the use of evidence coerced through cruel and abusive treatment. We urge lawmakers to stand firm in their commitment to American values and reject this charade of a compromise." |
Clearly the ACLU doesn't get it. Al-Qaeda and other terror organizations have not signed international treaties. They do not apply the Geneva Conventions when they're hacking off heads, nor will they ever. And as it currently stands, they are not protected under CA3 as detainees.
It's what I've been saying all along...we cannot apply the same POW logic to the War on Terror as we would if we were fighting someone like France. To start, the Geneva Conventions will never be applied to a prisoner of a terror group. Its false hope to assume if we act humanely to a terror suspect it will result in some change of psyche with the Jihadist movement. You can buy these cats’ roses and put them up in the W and they'll still have the deep running desire to kill you.
Second, the ACLU has followed the liberal media lead in calling these interrogations "torture." Notice the sentence that states "a 'get out of jail free card' to the administrations' top torture officials." Torture officials? Could the ACLU please name those officials? It's far easier for the ACLU to win their argument when they fabricate titles like "torture officials." I'm wondering if these torture officials wear leather chaps and frequent S&M clubs on the weekends. God only knows in the mind of the ACLU.
And finally, the ACLU would never admit that these "torture" techniques are far more humane than what has been offered to American POW's in every single foreign war since our independence. Calling such interrogation "torture" is yet another ploy to win an argument that can't be won on facts alone.
But as Stop the ACLU and other bloggers said, it was expected the ACLU would condemn the agreement and that's not a bad thing.