2008 Woodie Awards
Republican senators speak out against Bush's bill to protect prisoners
Daniel Black
Issue date: 9/28/06 Section: Opinion
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Keenly aware of upcoming elections that threaten their continuance of power, GOP senators let slip an unusual and uncharacteristic gesture of humanity in taking stands against George W. Bush's treatment of our Muslim guests at Guantanamo Bay and other international prison facilities. In an unprecedented outpouring of human decency, several senators confronted the President on detainee treatment issues and ultimately forced the drafting of a bill that, to some measure, protects their human rights.
According to the bill, prisoners must be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and International Law; no longer can President Bush interpret the laws that dictate how to treat foreign captives. Imagine that, we're not supposed to torture, abuse, deprive of life-sustaining elements, humiliate, or otherwise dehumanize those we illegally incarcerate. It took a bunch of senators five years to muster together that seemingly self-evident wisdom.
I noted the graceful guile with which the up-for-reelection senators distance themselves from the most hated man in the world: President George W. Bush. The whole affair was, if I may comment, brilliantly choreographed. Leaders once completely apathetic to the survival of non-Caucasians were fighting at the side of the defenseless, feigning concern for their lives. What admirable turncoats.
The things I cannot reconcile are the timelessness of moral issues with the transience of politicians' care about them: a man's life worth saving today was worth saving five years ago, am I right? What are we to believe? What message do these senators convey in their incongruence? It seems that so long as your comfortable, privileged lifestyle didn't hang in the balance, that nameless man may just as well have died for all you cared. Are we to assume that if your election to congress was life-long, as are appointments to the bench of the Supreme Court, those men would rot in prison, denied their fundamental human rights, until the welcome arrival of their deaths? How about we amend the constitution so that you face reelection every single day you hold office; is that what it will take to secure for these detainees humane treatment and fair trials?
According to the bill, prisoners must be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and International Law; no longer can President Bush interpret the laws that dictate how to treat foreign captives. Imagine that, we're not supposed to torture, abuse, deprive of life-sustaining elements, humiliate, or otherwise dehumanize those we illegally incarcerate. It took a bunch of senators five years to muster together that seemingly self-evident wisdom.
I noted the graceful guile with which the up-for-reelection senators distance themselves from the most hated man in the world: President George W. Bush. The whole affair was, if I may comment, brilliantly choreographed. Leaders once completely apathetic to the survival of non-Caucasians were fighting at the side of the defenseless, feigning concern for their lives. What admirable turncoats.
The things I cannot reconcile are the timelessness of moral issues with the transience of politicians' care about them: a man's life worth saving today was worth saving five years ago, am I right? What are we to believe? What message do these senators convey in their incongruence? It seems that so long as your comfortable, privileged lifestyle didn't hang in the balance, that nameless man may just as well have died for all you cared. Are we to assume that if your election to congress was life-long, as are appointments to the bench of the Supreme Court, those men would rot in prison, denied their fundamental human rights, until the welcome arrival of their deaths? How about we amend the constitution so that you face reelection every single day you hold office; is that what it will take to secure for these detainees humane treatment and fair trials?
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