The editorial in today's New York Times takes a strong stand against torture while calling on Bush not to veto the anti-torture bill--actually an amendment to the intelligence budget bill requiring the CIA and other intelligence agencies to defer to the Army Field Manual--it's a massive file--if there is any question about the meaning of torture. The manual is clear--Bush favorites like waterboarding, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, assault, dogging, hooding and duct taping eyes, exposure to cold are torture. The Bush says that he will veto and probably will because at this point to sign a bill expressively defining treatments of prisoners he ordered as torture would be tantamount to admitting to a war crime. The U.S. would have to fulfill its treaty obligations and send him to the Hague to be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. That would be fitting and proper, but is it likely to happen under the presidency of John McCain, who voted against this bill, or of Hillary [Clinton-Barack] Obama, who could not be bothered to stop campaigning long enough to return to Washington to cast a vote?
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