The gist of what I’ve been reading is the “compromise” between the White House and the “dissident” (ha!) Republican senators in regards to the treatment of terrorist suspects in light of the Geneva Convention standards on torture consists in essentially giving the President everything he wanted.

Ari Berman at The Nation says that “Democrats chose to outsource their policy on military tribunals to John McCain. And McCain did what he’s done best the last year: capitulate to Bush.”

Also at The Nation, “Torture Is a Moral Issue.”

Lots of analysis from the blog Balkinization. This post in particular is worth highlighting. Marty Lederman writes that “The result, unfortunately, is a very constrained conception of what constitutes ‘cruel treatment’ — a much narrower conception than a fair or reasonable interpretation of Geneva Article 3(1)(a) would provide. And therefore the bill would appear to exclude from the definition of ‘cruel treatment’ many cases of actual cruel treatment prohibited by Common Article 3. And when that occurs, it is likely the Executive will construe the statute — and Common Article 3, as well — to permit some forms of cruel treatment that Geneva in fact proscribes, i.e., the ‘alternative’ CIA techniques. Indeed, it’s happened already: The ink was hardly dry on the draft when numerous Administration spokespersons were gleefully informing the press that the bill is a green light to the CIA to reinstitute the ‘alternative’ techniques that Hamdan had effectively interdicted. Byron York has gone so far as to relate that ‘both sides appear to believe that the agreement permits the CIA to continue to use sleep deprivation, cold rooms, and other such techniques,’ even though such techniques do, in fact, constitue a breach of our Geneva obligations.”

At the American Prospect blog Deborah Pearlstein writes that “[t]he real problem, once again, is that the administration would like to continue to rely on the historically fallible ‘trust us’ method of ensuring the executive branch remains true to its word. A law — any law — that is not effectively enforceable in an independent court is not much of law at all. Yet by purporting to strip the federal courts of authority to enforce any provision of the Geneva Conventions, the compromise legislation not only treads dangerously on the powers promised by the Constitution to the judiciary, it calls into serious question the United States’ commitment to taking its own obligations seriously.”

Also at Tapped, Charles Pierce lays into the Democrats for essentially sitting on the sidelines during the entire debate.

Libertarian blogger Jim Henley says that “[t]he Senate has made it official: torture is official government policy so long as it meets the strict test of being called something else, said test to be proctored, taken and graded by the President in consultation with . . . the President.”

And finally, at Antiwar.com, Alan Bock writes on “torture chic” as a sign of imperial decadence.