opinion

Principles? We don't need no stinking principles
by Nicholas M. Jackson

Deep into the primary season for the 2008 US presidential election, pundits have noticed that elevation of any of the three surviving major candidates to the presidency would represent different historical "firsts." Those of us here in Panama have been intrigued by the possibility that the United States could have its first "Panamanian president." The reference, of course, is to John McCain's birth in the former Panama Canal Zone. Whether John McCain accepts the honor or not, he has the right under Article 9 of Panama's Constitution of 1972 to call himself a Panamanian.

How valuable is the novelty of having a "Panamanian" US president? 

It might be instructive to examine how John McCain has served the Republican Party in recent years. First, a bit of relevant history. McCain, as many people remember, was a Navy pilot shot down over North Vietnam in 1967. He was repeatedly tortured by his North Vietnamese captors over a five-year period. There is a famous picture of John McCain, recently freed as a POW, shaking President Nixon's hand while supporting himself on crutches. 

When he was campaigning for president in February of 2000, he was quoted in the news as referring to his captors as "gooks" for what they had done to him. Senator McCain insisted this derogatory term only referred to his North Vietnamese captors and maintained that he would "hate them as long as I live.''

That's how John McCain felt about torturers in 2000. He apparently hadn't changed his feelings as of late 2005. According to an August, 2006 Esquire article entitled, "Acts of Conscience", Army Captain Ian Fishback sent disturbing information to McCain regarding severe and ongoing detainee abuse he had witnessed during his tour in Iraq. Since Fishback was a decorated West Point graduate and an Army interrogator, his subsequent testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee was not ignored. Senator McCain used Fishback's evidence as a springboard for the Detainee Treatment Act he introduced in late 2005.

When he rose to the Senate floor on October 5, 2005 to support this act as Amendment No. 1978 to HR 2863, McCain condemned prisoner abuse and stated, "we must never simply fight evil with evil."

The public debate over this act became contentious and rude as Vice President Cheney weighed into the fray and tried to kill McCain's bill or have it amended to a meaningless final version. Former CIA Director Stansfield Turner was so incensed by the vice president's maneuvering that he referred to Cheney as the "Vice President for Torture."

The heart of the McCain's Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 is Section 1003(a): "No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment." But little noticed is another provision in the same Section, 1003(c): "The provisions of this section shall not be superseded, except by a provision of law enacted after the date of the enactment of this Act which specifically repeals, modifies, or supersedes the provisions of this section."

It is reasonable to conclude John McCain wanted to signal President Bush that another of his infamous "signing statements" would have no legal effect if Bush signed this bill into law. Faced with veto-proof legislation, President Bush went ahead and signed the bill containing the Detainee Treatment Act at his Crawford, Texas ranch on December 30, 2005. And then Bush's press secretary quietly posted a superseding signing statement on the White House web site later that night.

That signing statement indicated President Bush would not follow certain provisions of the Detainee Treatment Act where he construed such provisions to be contrary to his constitutional authority "to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief." So much for any checks and balances under the US Constitution. It was a back-stabbing episode certainly to have annoyed John McCain.

Nine months later, no one was surprised when McCain joined Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John Warner to oppose disturbing provisions buried within President Bush's proposed Military Commissions Act of 2006. The bill Bush proposed explicitly took away much of what McCain fought for in the Detainee Treatment Act. (Never mind that President Bush had already nullified it with his "signing statement.")

So after two weeks of tremendous bluster and snarling during the negotiations over the Military Commissions Act, the White House and the three "dissident" Republican senators announced a compromise bill. The terms of the "compromise" granted immunity from war crimes prosecution for the architects and implementers of President Bush's detention and interrogation "programs." The basic right of habeas corpus was denied to accused terrorists facing the death penalty. And President Bush and successor presidents would hold sole authority to decide whether a grave violation of the Geneva Conventions had even occurred. Unable to ignore the obvious human rights issues, Republican Senator Arlen Specter threw up his hands and said it was up to the courts to "fix" the Military Commissions Act. (But Specter, the loyal Republican, still voted for the Act.)

Senator McCain was utterly defeated in his desire to prevent fighting "evil with evil." Yet he appeared on CBS's "Face the Nation" on September 24, 2006 claiming he had made a good compromise. McCain stated that the revised Military Commissions Act of 2006 "defends both our values and our security." Republican Party loyalty demanded McCain choke back his concerns.  

Here we are about a year and a half after President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act into law. The Pentagon has just announced that six Guantanamo detainees are going to be tried under the Military Commissions Act and will be facing the death penalty. At least one of these detainees was tortured by the CIA and some of his "confessions" are known to be false. The Bush administration claims it's a "state secret" as to whether any of the other detainees facing the death penalty will be tried using evidence gathered from President Bush's "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Will the courts "fix" the new military process most independent legal observers consider "kangaroo courts" if these six detainees are tried under the Military Commissions Act? Well, one US Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, has publicly referred to the coercive interrogation techniques supported by President Bush as "so-called torture," indicating exigent circumstances sometimes justify such procedures. Scalia says torture is not prohibited under the cruel and unusual punishment constraints of the Eighth Amendment, anyway. Don't count on Justice Scalia or any of his Republican buddies on the Supreme Court to fix the Military Commissions Act.

And now we are faced with the spectacle of John McCain voting against an amendment requiring the CIA to follow the Army Field Manual for interrogations. McCain, apparently trading his vote for election year political support from the Bush wing of the Republican Party, stated "we always supported allowing the CIA to use extra measures." So now "torture" has morphed into "extra measures."

So ask yourself: Do you still like the bragging rights that come from having the first Panamanian president of the United States? If enough voters favor McCain next November maybe we should set up a betting pool to gamble on which of George W. Bush's Republican cronies get reappointed by President-Elect McCain to work in the next administration.