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Yay Powell & McCain
Sep. 15th, 2006 01:52 pmSlate has published an annotated copy of Bush's former Secretary of State Colin Powell's letter supporting Senator McCain's efforts to require the US to abide by the Geneva Conventions. It is DEFINITELY worth reading.
General Powell's letter references a letter from another former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Jack Vessey (PDF). It's also worth reading. One excerpt:
This is part of the current dispute over Bush's push to "clarify" (read: decrease) protection for prisoners and to "allow terror suspects to be convicted by military commissions relying on classified information not shared with the suspects." McCain disagrees - and the Senate's Armed Services Committee approved McCain's version of the bill, not Bush's.
Contact information for senators is on the Senate website. I expect Washington's senators will support McCain's bill already, but encouragement doesn't hurt. Neither would thank-yous to McCain and the Republicans who backed him on the committee: Chairman John Warner of Virginia, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.
General Powell's letter references a letter from another former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Jack Vessey (PDF). It's also worth reading. One excerpt:
I continue to read and hear that we are facing a "different enemy" in the war on terror; no matter how true that may be, inhumanity and cruelty are not new to warfare nor to enemies we have faced in the past. In my short 46 years in the Armed Forces, Americans confronted the horrors of the prison camps of the Japanese in World War II, the North Koreans in 1950-53, and the North Vietnamese in the long years of the Vietnam war, as well as knowledge of the Nazi's holocaust depredations in World War II. Through those years, we held to our own values. We should continue to do so.
This is part of the current dispute over Bush's push to "clarify" (read: decrease) protection for prisoners and to "allow terror suspects to be convicted by military commissions relying on classified information not shared with the suspects." McCain disagrees - and the Senate's Armed Services Committee approved McCain's version of the bill, not Bush's.
Contact information for senators is on the Senate website. I expect Washington's senators will support McCain's bill already, but encouragement doesn't hurt. Neither would thank-yous to McCain and the Republicans who backed him on the committee: Chairman John Warner of Virginia, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.
