Lorem Ipsum

Here's what I know and what I've been able to piece together so far:

• First, there's this notion floating around out there that torture, while unpleasant, is something we need to do now and then to get results. National security, donchaknow.
• Back in 2002, then-White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales "advised the White House . . . that the torture of al Qaeda terrorist suspects might be legally defensible." The memo he wrote (which became public in 2004) "said that torturing suspected al Qaeda members abroad 'may be justified' and that international laws against torture 'may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogation' conducted against suspected terrorists." (Washington Post, June 2004). See also the Gonzales Torture Memo overview at Citizen's Rent, and Newsweek article "The Roots of Torture" (focusing primarily on Abu Ghraib).
• I sent a letter to Senator Boxer last summer suggesting that torture is just plain wrong and asking her to stand up for that principle. I imagine she would've done so without my urging, but it seemed worthwhile to drop her a note anyway.
• In September or October of 2005, Senator McCain introduced an amendment to the 2006 DoD appropriations bill providing "uniform standards for the interrogation of persons under the detention of the Department of Defense." It basically outlaws torture. (I was all pro-McCain for a while there, until I got the full-color flyer on election day in which McCain talked about how it important it was to pass Schwarzenegger's four reform propositions on the California ballot.)
• You'd think such an amendment would be popular, and it was--91 senators voted in favor of it. (Or maybe 90? Different articles disagree.) Of course, that means that nine senators voted against prohibiting torture.
• It wasn't only some senators who were opposed to the amendment. Vice President Cheney asked that the CIA be exempted from the no-torture rules. (I realize that mocking photos of public figures are cheap shots, but I can't help being entertained by that sneer of Cheney's in the photo accompanying this article.) I gather that Bush has subsequently said he'll veto the bill if it arrives on his desk with this amendment intact (and no CIA exemption), but I'm not certain of that. I'm a little unclear on why 90 senators won't be able to override the veto, though.
• Anyway. A week ago, Richard Cohen wrote an op-ed column for the Washington Post titled "Torture, Shaming Us All, about talking with his Jordanian (?) driver, Bassam, about the US and torture and such.
• That same day, Ben Rosenbaum blogged a letter to his senators on the subject. "It is horrifying and disgraceful that we are even having this conversation"; yes.
• So here's where I get confused. That same day, or maybe the next day, I received an urgent email alert from the Center for Constitutional Rights, an organization that's been at the forefront of fighting for the rights of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The CCR urged us to spread the word that Sen. Graham was trying to pass a new amendment that would eliminate the rights of those prisoners. I was in a hurry and I couldn't find any independent corroboration, and I'm opposed to posting alarmist unconfirmed rumors most of the time, so I held off.
• But apparently the Senate did indeed pass the Graham amendment, 49 to 42. The CCR now has more details.
• But I could have sworn I saw a newspaper article last week that quoted Graham as saying that he was proposing an amendment which would give Guantanamo prisoners more rights, not less. Did I just misread that? Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

I guess I'm conflating two different issues here: holding prisoners at Guantanamo without charges or a trial doesn't equate to torturing them, and the administration insists (last I heard) that all those prisoners are being treated humanely. (No word on how the prisoners at the alleged secret prisons in other countries are being treated.)

But I guess here's why I think these issues go together: my understanding is that we're holding those people at Guantanamo Bay precisely because that means certain US laws don't apply. Am I wrong about that? Wikipedia (which may or may not be accurate) says, in its Guantanamo Bay article: "It is unclear whether the detainees are protected by the constitutionally guaranteed civil rights which would be invoked if they were detained in the United States."

So on the one hand, at least 90 senators agree that we shouldn't be torturing people.

But on the other hand, at least 40 of those same senators apparently feel that the prisoners in Gitmo don't deserve constitutional protections.

Is the idea that the prisoners should have some intermediate status, where they aren't protected by the US constitution but they are nonetheless protected by the law against torture? I suppose that would be a consistent position to hold, but I find it baffling. But then, I'm only barely awake right now.