In September 2006 Congress passed the Military Commissions Act. This law is a horrific, un-American, un-Constitutional, and immoral piece of legislation.
Senator Susan Collins voted for this law. It is my understanding that Senator Olympia Snowe was in Maine for a funeral during the vote for this legislation. However, Snowe wrote that she strongly supported the bill. How could Collins, who worked to find answers regarding the crisis of Katrina, vote for this legislation, which I believe has created another crisis? And how could Snowe, who I believe wrote about the soul of the Iraq nation, support what Senator John Warner (R-Virginia) introduced ? I believe that the Military Commissions Act allows for torture, and I believe that torture is tearing at the very soul of this nation.
It my understanding that the Military Commissions Act does the following four things: 1) takes away habeas corpus (the legal right to challenge one’s detention in the light of a court hearing that we have had since the 1200s); 2) lets the Bush administration interpret the Geneva Conventions, thus allowing the administration to continue to allow for torture; 3) allows the Bush administration to determine who is an American enemy combatant (even though a person could be completely innocent) and to detain this person indefinitely; and 4) allows for increased sweeping up of innocent legal immigrants in America and to their indefinite detention.
It is my understanding that the Bush administration has been allowing for the torture of children, women, and men around the world for five years including at Guantanamo Bay.
I know of no major world religion that condones torture. I believe that torture is a moral issue.
I think that senators Collins and Snowe should publicly apologize to the people of Maine for what they have done, and that both of these senators should work in Congress to make sure that this legislation is repealed. Then I think that both of these senators should join with the people of Maine and work to abolish torture everywhere. In addition I think that senators Collins and Snowe should work in Congress to make sure that all innocent prisoners that our government is detaining are released and that all prisons (secret and otherwise) where innocent prisoners are detained and tortured are closed.
Brian Noyes Pulling
Cape Elizabeth
Related:
Ducking the question, Peace corps, Silence kills, More 
- Ducking the question
Maine senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are — relatively speaking — gay friendly.
- Peace corps
In December 2004, 13 anti-war activists gathered in Senator Susan Collins’s office in Portland, Maine. They read the names of American soldiers who had died in the Iraq war, as well as an equal number of Iraqi civilians who had died.
- Silence kills
The effort to overturn the Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell policy needs more than just the support of the 120 House members who have signed on to the bill to replace it with a non-discrimination law.
- Ditched
Olympia Snowe would protect me, I thought. I continued to believe that right up until January 31, when she voted to support George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.
- Senators fight snooping
President Bush authorized spying on US citizens without bothering to seek the approval of a federal court. A Maine senator is leading the charge to find out why.
- Avoiding the problem
Over the course of Olympia Snowe's career in the US Senate, companies and workers in the healthcare and insurance industries have been her top donors (except for retirees and retiree political-action committees, which are obviously also concerned with healthcare issues).
- Letters to the Portland Editor, June 9, 2006
“World-class listening problem.” Yes, but whose?
- She's dead to me
Olympia Snowe is doomed.
- At war with the mystics
To disguise the fact I was too lazy to do any real work this week, I had to fill this space with a list of all the stupid things the Christian Civic League of Maine did lately.
- The waiting game
We know, we know: Last week, Olympia Snowe made history by being the only Republican in 2009 to vote for any sort of healthcare reform, even in committee-level draft language far from its final form.
- Hey, hey, we're the Monkees
The law of averages says if you put 100 monkeys in a room with 100 computers, they'll eventually write a workable national health-care bill. Apparently, that rule doesn't apply to 100 US senators.
- Less
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, U.S. Government, U.S. Congressional News, Politics, U.S. Politics, Armed Forces, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, torture, John Warner, Less
