Military whining about law prohibiting them from training "gross human rights violators"

[cali]

A 16-year-old law that bars American aid to foreign security forces that violate human rights is drawing unusual fire from some top military commanders who say it undermines their ability to train the troops to fight militants and drug traffickers.

The rare dispute involving some of the military’s top uniformed officers, the State Department and a powerful Democratic senator is important because as the Obama administration winds down the war in Afghanistan and reins in the Central Intelligence Agency’s armed drone program, the Pentagon is increasingly training and equipping local security services to combat militants in their countries so American troops do not have to.

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At issue is the so-called Leahy amendment, a 1997 provision to a foreign aid bill named after its author, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, which bars the United States from providing training or equipment to foreign troops or units who commit “gross human rights violations” like rape, murder or torture.

<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/us/politics/military-says-law-barring-us-aid-to-rights-violators-hurts-training-mission.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[Gregorian]

1. My love of Leahy grows. It's people like him who give me hope.

It's hard for me to be positive in a world of scumbags. I need hope. It's out there, even if it's quiet.

[cali]

3. He's not perfect but he's a pretty good guy and a damned effective Senator

This is an old story on him posted in the National Review. You gotta love a guy that repukes hate so passionately.

By consensus — a consensus of Hill Republicans — Pat Leahy is the meanest, most partisan, most ruthless Democrat in the Senate. Ask a Republican about Leahy, and he'll shudder. Then he will say that, though Leahy can be nice and smiling on the surface, underneath he is — take your pick — "a left-wing brute," "nasty," "a pile of pure malice." Republicans are not in complete agreement, however: One says, "He's the most obnoxious [SOB] in the Senate now that Howard Metzenbaum's gone"; another says, "Nah, he was always worse than Metzenbaum, it's just that the general public didn't know it." Republicans, to a man, swear that they would take Ted Kennedy, Christopher Dodd, Joe Biden, John Kerry — any famously partisan Democrat over Leahy. They were very much hoping that Biden, for example, would resume his chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee; he was chairman, recall, during the years that included the pummeling of Robert Bork and the pummeling of Clarence Thomas. Instead, however, Biden chose the Foreign Relations post, leaving Judiciary to Leahy.

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So, what about this "junkyard dog in a Vermont sweater" (to quote yet another staffer)? Several different Senate-watchers cite one recent episode. It's a relatively small thing, they say, but an instance in which the underside of Leahy was revealed. Sen. Strom Thurmond is almost 100 now, and when he appears at a committee meeting, he generally reads a short statement from a card, and shuffles off. You don't try to engage him in debate, or much else, anymore, and most everyone knows it, and accepts it. At a meeting in April, Thurmond read his statement as usual — and Leahy jumped in to question him about it. Orrin Hatch, then Judiciary chairman, intervened, saying he would handle Leahy's questions himself, trying to spare Thurmond embarrassment. But Leahy kept it up. Witnesses were appalled, seeing no purpose in it except to humiliate the old man.

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In his 25 years as a senator, Leahy has built a solidly left-liberal record. He has his share of fans. He likes photography and the Grateful Dead. He is said to be affable in hallways, and to be a wiz at constituent services. He styles himself "the cybersenator," because of his interest in computers and the Internet. He crusades against capital punishment, and against the use of land mines. He is a great champion of trial lawyers: For example, he led the fight (a successful one) to remove the liability cap on the tobacco industry; for the lawyers, the sky was the limit. In all, Leahy is the perfect left-liberal senator, voting for higher taxes, opposing welfare reform, vilifying Ronald Reagan, denouncing Kenneth Starr as a Constitution-destroying zealot, decrying the Supreme Court that ruled after the Florida deadlock, and so on.

Throughout the '80s, Leahy was one of those Democrats most passionately opposed to Reagan in Central America — one of those who traveled to Nicaragua and tried to block the (U.S.) president at every turn. With Chris Dodd, he sponsored a bill to cut aid to El Salvador. More recently, in 1999, he traveled to Cuba, where he dined with Fidel Castro. Cuba, of course, is a country with thousands of political prisoners, a country where oppression is pervasive and torture routine. The major issue to come out of Leahy's huddle with Castro? Ice cream. You see, Fidel had spoken up for Cuba's ice cream, and Pat had put in a word for Ben & Jerry's (Vermont's own). Said the senator in a post- huddle interview, "Now my major diplomatic effort will be to get a hold of Ben Cohen [the "Ben" of the company] and figure out how they can send down a case of Ben & Jerry's. Castro made me promise I would get Ben & Jerry's ice cream to him." Then the big concern was what the dictator's favorite flavor was. It's not clear whether Castro ever got his Ben & Jerry's; it's pretty clear, however, that Leahy is not overly troubled by the fates of the ice-cream lover's victims. The statements Leahy has made about Cuba show a profound ignorance, whether willful or not, about that battered island.

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http://old.nationalreview.com/nordlinger/nordlinger200407080917.asp

[idwiyo]

2. "Rape, murder and torture" is exactly what they teach in School of Americas.

I can see why Military feels "unfairly" singled out.