December 16, 2005

So Bush is going to sign a bill prohibiting "cruel, inhuman, and degrading" treatment. I'll still wait to see the actual wording. For example, just what is a "prisoner"? Does it have to be someone who is officially "arrested" or "captured"? That would rule out all sorts of people who are simply kidnapped off the streets and spirited off to secret prisons. Do they have to have made it into "the system" to count? That would rule out people like Nazem Baji, executed by U.S. forces in the field while handcuffed. Or the prisoner who was executed in the mosque because a soldier claimed he was "f**king faking he's dead."

And just what is "cruel, inhuman, and degrading" anyway? I suspect international and military lawyers have their own definition. Was it cruel and inhuman to imprison Jose Padilla in solitary confinement for 3 1/2 years without charges? How about Iraqi General Amer al-Saadi, who surrendered voluntarily to the Americans, only to spend the next 2 1/2 years (and counting) in solitary confinement, again without charges, a man not even suspected or accused of any violent acts (not that Padilla was ever formally accused either, press conferences not qualifying as legal proceedings)? Was his treatment "cruel and inhuman"? I know if someone did that to me, I'd certainly think so. How about the hundreds of prisoners in Guantanamo, illegally imprisoned in dog cages, without legal rights and often without their families knowing where they are? Cruel and inhuman? How could it not be?

A "ban" on "cruel, inhuman, and degrading" treatment? Don't you believe it.