Bush blocks aid to tortured U.S. veterans from Iraq war, Rachel Maddow investigates

President Bush surprised Congress by refusing to sign a Defense Department authorization bill, in part because the legislation could revive a lawsuit brought by American prisoners of war during the 1991 Persian Gulf War who say they were tortured by the Iraqis.

Their suit sought to establish the principle that war prisoners who were tortured in violation of the Geneva Convention were entitled to sue the country that tortured them.

By keeping the bill from becoming law, the president delayed pay raises for the troops and improvements in the care of wounded veterans...the main lawsuit that had drawn the attention of the White House and the Iraqis was a claim from American prisoners of war.

The 17 ex-POWs, most of them pilots who had been shot down, sued Saddam Hussein's regime for their brutal treatment after they were captured.

In 1996, Congress partly waived the rule that shields foreign countries from being sued. And after hearing evidence of how the former POWs had been beaten and starved, a judge awarded them a total judgment of $959 million.

But the verdict came shortly after the United States had invaded Iraq and toppled Hussein. Bush administration lawyers then intervened in the case and said the judgment should be thrown out...government attorneys also worry that weakening the sovereign-immunity rule could encourage filing legal claims against the United States or U.S. officials for abuse allegedly meted by American authorities.
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/index.cfm/Page/Article/ID/9052
John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero who people would logically imagine as a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.

Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain's role in it, even as the Republican Party has made McCain's military service the focus of his presidential campaign. Reporters who had covered the Vietnam War turned their heads and walked in other directions. McCain doesn't talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them.

The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a special forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington—and even sworn testimony by two Defense secretaries that "men were left behind." This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number—the documents indicate probably hundreds—of the US prisoners held by Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain.
http://www.nationinstitute.org/p/schanberg09182008pt1

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[exbronco1980]

money is the most important thing to most americans

[prettyblkgyrl]

UM - I'm baffled - the Iraq government has a surplus of $79 billion. Yet the White House sites they are at risk of facing a financial hardship. SERIOUSLY?!?!

Exactly who's interest is the Bush administration favoring? You'd think the government would want to preserve the rights of the honorable service men & women who are sacrificing their lives for this war. This is a total disgrace!!

WE NEED & DESERVE CHANGE!!

[topayo]

only in the usa :/ ...

[TheSpankymonkey]

@bohemianwriter1 - You know for one comment, you made a hell of a lot of presumptions. The funny part is you couldn't of been any more wrong if you tried.... Run along child... hardly worth playing with you...

[bohemianwriter1]

@TheSpankymonkey

So you are one who's against the troops, for wae, with your fascists brown nose so far up Bush & Limbaughs ass that you stink more than yesterdays diapers?

I bet you're one of those brainless tea bagging chicvkenhawkis, all gun nut and mno balls...

How's that "conservatism" going for ya? Reaching out to all americans and across the seas yet?

[TheSpankymonkey]

listner90 - Oh the irony of an American calling someone a dumbass. V.Funny.

[listner90]

shut the fuck up you dumbass.

[TheSpankymonkey]

Do one dipstick. You get my comments whether you fucking like it or not. Retard.

[TheShnuz]

@TheSpankymonkey My post is a response to someone else's. Get your shit together and read more then one before you jump into it a convo. Your assumptions are incorrect and your argument has no reason because of it.

[TheSpankymonkey]

"i heard bin laden talking" - Did you fuck...

[TheSpankymonkey]

"We constantly abuse our heros." - You seemed to be obessed with the idea of hero's too.....

[TheSpankymonkey]

"then you shell out your own paychecks to them." - We do. Right wing fucking loons are not the only people paying for this. Your logic centres around the fact it's you that is paying for it. I am glad you are paying for it personally and you know something... I am glad you are fucking pissed off about it too. Maybe it will make you think twice about getting into this kind of shit to begin with. Your politics gets you into this shit...