(graphic via Attaturk via AP) Bush:
Welcome to the White House on an historic day. It is a rare occasion when a President can sign a bill he knows will save American lives. I have that privilege this morning. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is one of the most important pieces of legislation in the war on terror.
This nation will call evil by its name.
Indeed we will...(via Arthur)
Even more disturbingly, the president explicitly stated that he considers torture to be a form of extra-judicial punishment:
"With the bill I'm about to sign, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent people will face justice," Bush said. [AP]
And so, the truth comes out. The president values torture as retribution for its own sake. Never mind that suspects are tortured before they've been tried, let alone found guilty of anything.
The President signed the Military Commissions Act into law this morning. But according to Tony Snow (see below), there won't be a written signing statement! Because, you know, unlike all those other bills that have prompted hundreds of objections and "constructions," this one is entirely pellucid and unambiguous, and doesn't raise any constitutional questions....read on
Talk Left: The ACLU has issued a statement calling the law "one of the worst civil liberties measures ever enacted in American history."
President Bush this morning proudly signed into law a bill that critics consider one of the most un-American in the nation's long history.
The new law vaguely bans torture -- but makes the administration the arbiter of what is torture and what isn't. It allows the president to imprison indefinitely anyone he decides falls under a wide-ranging new definition of unlawful combatant. It suspends the Great Writ of habeas corpus for detainees. It allows coerced testimony at trial. It immunizes retroactively interrogators who may have engaged in torture....read on
