The McCain amendment on torture passed the Senate 90-9.

The McCain amendment on torture passed the Senate 90-9. That sort of margin usually means legislation is meaningless or noxious. The McCain amendment might be a little of both. It codifies the Army Field Manual with regard to the treatment of prisoners and reaffirms the prohibition on cruel and inhuman treatment in the Convention Against Torture. Since the U.S. already uses the Army Field Manual for its prisoner policy and abides by the anti-torture convention, the McCain amendment is, strictly speaking, a redundancy. The rub is how the vague terms in the Army manual and the convention are defined. If the McCain amendment were more than grandstanding, it would say explicitly whether all stress techniques are prohibited, and if not, in what broad circumstances they are acceptable. Our view is that it is right and in our interest that enemy prisoners be treated humanely. The chain of command should have had a much better handle on how detainees were being treated (which would have prevented some of the infamous abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan). But we don't want to rule out pressuring high-value detainees in ways that fall short of torture but would draw the disapproval of Human Rights Watch. We have gained valuable intelligence through such means and could do so again. In today's political environment, however, it is impossible to say this without being accused of wanting to stack naked detainees in pyramids and break their legs. And here is where the McCain amendment could do harm: It will be widely interpreted as making it impossible to treat enemy detainees any differently from U.S. criminal suspects. This is an unreasonable standard, and one we will come to regret.