I've read the bill. Feddie's site is not loading. I was hoping to get his take on it as lawyer. I'm having trouble understanding which parts of this bill you object to. Could you tell us all what the objectionable language is and which paragraphs are so egregious?
John J. Simmins | 09.29.06 - 3:36 pm | #

Feddie's remarks are about torture, not about the Prez declaring people unlawful combatants. I'm referring to our unanimity on torture.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 09.29.06 - 5:04 pm | #

The bill does not authorize torture, though. Waterboarding is banned.
Sydney Carton | 09.29.06 - 5:12 pm | #

Saying "waterboarding is banned" is not, by any stretch, showing that torture is banned. You know that.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 09.29.06 - 5:26 pm | #

Well, I couldn't find anywhere in the bill that authorizes torture though.
Sydney Carton | 09.29.06 - 5:30 pm | #

Mark--the MCA expressly bars conduct that would violate the federal torture act and reaffirms the McCain detainee treatment act. The MCA does give the President authority to define non-grave breaches of the Geneva Convention but not grave breaches (which would include torture). What on earth do you see in the Act that authorizes or permits torture? I'm sorry, reasonable people can disagree about some of the provisions of MCA and I don't pretend to have fully digested it, but I think the lurid sky-is-falling rhetoric I see on this site and others is unjustified.
Ed Graham | 09.29.06 - 5:58 pm | #

The federal torture act leaves it to the Pres to decide what does and does not constitute torture.

I'm not particularly comforted.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 09.29.06 - 6:42 pm | #

Mark--with respect, but that is not true. Section 2340 of the torture act (28 U.S.C. § 2340) defines torture as follows:

"As used in this chapter -
(1) "torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical
or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from -
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or
other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or
the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be
subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the
administration or application of mind-altering substances or
other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or
personality."

I think you are confusing provisions of the MCA that permit the President to define "non-grave" breaches of the Geneva Convention, which some fear the President will use to authorize treatment short of torture, as defined in the torture act, e.g., degrading and humiliating treatment, which would be prohibited under the Geneva Convention. But the torture act (and, therefore, the MCA) plainly does not leave the definition of torture to the President.
Ed Graham | 09.29.06 - 6:54 pm | #

Ed,

Acknowledging the reality of the law would mean that Mark couldn't play his "attack conservatives who are now enemies of the Church" game. You're ruining all his fun.
Sydney Carton | Homepage | 09.29.06 - 10:23 pm | #

Sydney--I don't think Mark is playing a game. He's a layperson raising serious issues that inevitably run into complex legal issues and he's relying on summaries/reportage from newspapers and others that often have an axe to grind or oversimplify (and I don't mean to pick on Mark--I readily concede that I have not had time to fully digest, say, the MCA). The Bush Administration HAS sanctioned practices, such as waterboarding, that are disturbing and should be questioned. Where I part with Mark is over his tone and the sweeping condemnations of the Bush Administration, his seeming unwillingness to grant it any benefit of the doubt, and his willingness to immediately assume the worst. One doesn't have to think Jack Bauer is the answer to wonder whether the name-rank-and-serial-number approach to interrogating conscript soldiers in past conventional wars is the only acceptable approach.
Ed Graham | 09.29.06 - 11:48 pm | #

Not weird at all, good luck with your next pledge drive!

Follow the money!
Squiboda | 10.01.06 - 3:01 am | #