The debate about detainees

Re “Senate Panel Rebuffs Bush on Detainees,” Sept. 15

Although the bipartisanship shown by the Senate Armed Services Committee is welcome new ground, the greater surprise was how so many disparate viewpoints could join together in something so wrong. The argument that other countries would have “an excuse to strip international protections from captured U.S. soldiers” is patently specious.

Are these well-intentioned senators intentionally ignoring our captured soldiers being dragged through streets in Mogadishu, or mutilated American bodies hacked with poles and spiked on a bridge in Fallouja, or a young solider having bones broken at the “Hanoi Hilton” in Vietnam? How misled can this new bipartisanship be to believe that by treating evil people as civilized, their civility will ring through?

LAWRENCE R. GORDON

Marina del Rey

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What a proud day for our country. Our leader did his best to overturn the substance of the Geneva Convention, which for years has stood as a last thin thread of civilized conduct amid the horrors of war. Despite the fact that those within his own party worked successfully to block the effort, the diluted message that works its way overseas will be clear: Americans will claim the moral high ground about everything we do, no matter how plainly the facts show we have no right to.

CHRIS MCCALEB

Los Angeles

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It seemed to have taken a looming election to get some senators to finally stand up against the Bush administration’s twisted and dangerous logic that torture and other un-American practices will save America.

September 11 did change the world, mainly because of President Bush’s dishonest and destructive reactions to it. Not only did he divide our country, he divided the world, even after it had come together to support us after 9/11. Bush has continued to promote and exploit our fears, telling us we are weak unless we throw out our constitutional principles and redefine patriotism to mean simply following his orders.

I’m glad former Secretary of State Colin Powell and others have finally spoken up to say that we are not fighting for America unless we act with the morality and ideals upon which this nation was founded. We are strongest when we act not out of fear but from the strength of our highest principles.

As president, Bush took an oath to protect our Constitution. He should honor his oath or step aside and let someone who truly believes in America’s ideals do the job in his place.

STEVEN PEREZ

Santa Monica