Cruel to be Kind?

Senator John McCain has placed an amendment on the current Pentagon spending bill to place some standards on the treatment of prisoners in the custody of the U.S. military.

The Bush Administration says the president would veto it. Why? According to this article, the amendment on the bill would be redundant, so the Bush folks say. So.

So. Apparently, it is needed since an overwhelming majority of the Senate passed the bill with this prisoner treatment amendment. Apparently, the rash of investigations due to prisoner abuse has sparked these legislators to make prisoner treatment laws, likely because the current military laws aren't curbing this prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers.

Then, the article goes on to say that the Bush folks mention this amendment would hurt the war on terror. Um.... ah.... now how would this prisoner treatment provision, that the administration says is duplicating apparently other laws, hurt the war on terror? If this is only a repeat of other rules, then there should be no worries that it would hamper any action to reduce terror, because we are currently under these repetitive rules.

So. Is there more to these prisoner treatment provisions?

You know, Mr. McCain, this war on terror is not like Vietnam. Nam was a totally different story, according to General Myers, the Iraq War military leader. Myers, also a decorated Vietnam veteran, retorted that the Iraq struggle is "a complex situation that is not well-understood by folks who fought in Vietnam." (http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/351237p-299460c.html)