House votes to outlaw CIA waterboarding

The U.S. House of Representatives has ignored a threatened White House veto and voted to outlaw harsh interrogation methods, such as simulated drowning, that the CIA has used against suspected terrorists.

On a largely party line vote of 222-199, the Democratic-led House approved a measure to require intelligence agents to comply with the Army Field Manual, which bans torture in compliance with the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war.

The measure, part of a sweeping intelligence bill, passed amid a congressional probe into the recent disclosure that the CIA destroyed videotapes of al Qaeda suspects undergoing waterboarding, a simulated drowning.

Many countries, U.S. lawmakers and human rights groups have accused the United States of torturing terror suspects since the September 11 attacks.

President George W. Bush says the United States does not torture, but the administration will not disclose what interrogation methods it has approved for the CIA.

It's slightly bizarre to watch the House of Representatives voting to outlaw something that should already be illegal under the Geneva Conventions, but this is the reality of Bush's America.

He decides ad hoc which international laws America will agree to be bound by, despite the fact that the US is a signatory to all of the laws that he is currently in the process of ignoring. As Dana Perino famously stated the US will not be asking any international court to assist it as it redefines the convention - despite this being a requirement of international law - and will be relying solely on a US definition of what the law states.

Of course, right wingers like Bill O'Reilly have come off the fence to argue that waterboarding is necessary to keep Americans safe, so they're actively arguing that "harsh methods" need to be used. This goes beyond the usual argument of "is or isn't it legal" and takes us into the territory of "if it works, we must use it". As O'Reilly put it, "Waterboarding saves lives" and it's not for politicians to argue morality if it might cost lives.

This will no doubt be Bush's thinking as he promises to veto this latest vote.

In threatening to veto the House-passed measure, which now awaits Senate action, the White House argued it would prevent the United States from conducting "lawful interrogations of senior al Qaeda terrorists."

House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer countered that the current administration had blurred the line "between legitimate, sanctioned interrogation tactics and torture."

"There is no doubt our international reputation has suffered and been stained as a result," Hoyer told colleagues.

Backers of harsh interrogation say it is needed to pry vital information out of enemy combatants. But critics say torture is inhumane and such information is often unreliable.

The US's reputation worldwide is in tatters and people like O'Reilly actively arguing that the US should use methods that most of the world accept is torture only shows how the moral compass of the American right has become so skewered as to render them deeply immoral people.

Bush's veto when it comes will further emphasise this point. The American right now appears to consist of Malkin-like hate mongers no longer attempting to hide the fact that they embrace a world view that most reasonable people - and a majority of Americans - have long ago rejected.

The nutters are truly running that particular asylum.