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"Everyone knew the President would drum up an uncomfortable you&amp;apos;re-either-with-us or-you&amp;apos;re-with-the-terrorists vote for Congressional Democrats before the November elections. (I&amp;apos;d long assumed it would have something to do with Iran.) But there&amp;apos;s something odd about the president&amp;apos;s proposed legislation to sanction the CIA&amp;apos;s harshest interrogations.\n\nYes this vote is a blunt weapon with which to cudgel Democrats for being soft on al Qaeda. You don&amp;apos;t want us to take the gloves off when we&amp;apos;re questioning Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (who is so evil he&amp;apos;s been stripped of his human name and will now only be called by the acronym &amp;quot;KSM&amp;quot;)See? Democrats really would prefer to let you die than upset the ACLU.\n\nAs far as those politics go, they&amp;apos;re as transparent as they are excreble. But there&amp;apos;s also a defensive posture to what the president proposed yesterday. The 14 trophy terrorists now awaiting a military tribunal at Gitmo have already been subjected to the administration&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;torture lite.&amp;quot; Congress is being asked to rubber stamp the administration&amp;apos;s past actions and remove any possibility that these (is it traitorous to call them &amp;quot;alleged?&amp;quot;) terrorists can sue for having their rights under the Geneva Conventions violated, even in the unlikely event they&amp;apos;re found innocent, and remove any chance that the personnel who put any of these 14 bad guys on the water board &amp;#x2014; or the administration officials who OK&amp;apos;d its use &amp;#x2014; be accused of war crimes. (Following the Hamdan decision and Justice Kennedy&amp;apos;s stark warning for those who violate the Geneva Conventions, this concern is more than academic).\n\nIt seems that inherent in this proposal is a recognition that Democrats could soon have control of the House and with that, subpoena power; they could use it to come after the president for his administration&amp;apos;s use of torture &amp;#x2014; and not just in the arguably justifiable case of top-level bad guys like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, but also on lesser figures like the operative named al-Libi who was tortured on the water board into making a false confession that Saddam was providing al Qaeda with chemical weapons training. A false charge, incidentally, that was key to building the case for the disastrous Iraq war.\n\nI know Karl Rove &amp;amp; Co. are foxy, but I somehow can&amp;apos;t see this working as both the secret weapon that turns around Republican prospects for November and shields the president and his men from accountability for torture. But I&amp;apos;ve misunderestimated these men before."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/torture-immunity-and-the-midterms-20060907>