CBS News reported yesterday that Bush has promised to veto the Intelligence authorization bill that just passed the Senate, because it limits CIA interrogators to techniques outlined in the US Army Field Manual. No big surprise there. The surprising (well, not surprising. More disturbing, really) part was this:
Sen. John McCain, who has previously spoken out against torture (having been tortured himself while held captive during the Vietnam War), voted against the bill, but said his vote was not inconsistent with his previous calls for a ban.
The disturbing part is that McCain knows that torture doesn't work. Newsmax, Limbaugh and some other right-wing hacks have taken some of McCain's quotes out of context to argue that he claimed that torture worked on him during the Vietnam war. Media Matters has an article that refutes that claim. They quote a passage from a Newsweek article in which McCain states:
Obviously, to defeat our enemies we need intelligence, but intelligence that is reliable. We should not torture or treat inhumanely terrorists we have captured. The abuse of prisoners harms, not helps, our war effort. In my experience, abuse of prisoners often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear -- whether it is true or false -- if he believes it will relieve his suffering. I was once physically coerced to provide my enemies with the names of the members of my flight squadron, information that had little if any value to my enemies as actionable intelligence. But I did not refuse, or repeat my insistence that I was required under the Geneva Conventions to provide my captors only with my name, rank and serial number. Instead, I gave them the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line, knowing that providing them false information was sufficient to suspend the abuse. It seems probable to me that the terrorists we interrogate under less than humane standards of treatment are also likely to resort to deceptive answers that are perhaps less provably false than that which I once offered. [Media Matters' emphasis]
So John McCain knows that torture is not a reliable way to get useful information out of a detainee. He knows because he has been subjected to torture (which I think gives him a unique perspective on the matter among his fellow Senators) and when he reached his breaking point he gave up false information because he knew that as long as the interrogators got that much, they would stop torturing him. But now he's flip-flopped on the issue. Why? What could he possibly gain from it?
Oh yeah, he's going to be the Republican nominee for president. Got to look tough if you want to do that. Can't let little things like reason or logic or a basic respect for human rights get in the way.
McCain has a reputation (justifiably or not) as someone who will compromise to get the job done. The job this time is getting the nomination for president. The compromise? His ideals, apparently.
4 comments:
Hey there....great read. I think most politicians compromise and we just refuse to see it. Bush is hated by republicans for his compromises and democrats hate him for his non-comprimises. So it's a damned if you do and damned if you don't kind of business. He would have at least a 50 percent approval rating if he was straight republican all the time. But of course the big spender dems get on the same things the phants do like spending because of partisanship. Since when are dems concerned about spending???? more of it maybe but not stopping it. Jphn McCain is having the same problem. As long as he kisses the asses of the extreme right, they are quiet, but compromising with dems...do they see it??? I think they do. With Bush there is always that gorilla in the room of stealing the election so they don't see the compromises he has made....... I of course will make none to the dems but I will acknowledge the necessity of it as do you....:)Nikki
Hey, Nikki. I understand that politicians often need to make compromises if they want to get anything accomplished. Funny thing about Bush is that his compromising is all done within his own party. It's tough to balance yourself between the ultra-religious and the ultra-rich.
What disgusts me about McCain is that he himself was tortured during his 5.5 years as a P.O.W. in the Vietnam war. But now, since he's making one last grab for glory, he has abandoned the principled stand that he has taken for the past oh I don't know, 30 years. Is this the man who rides on the "Straight Talk Express?" Is this the honorable, respectable man that the Republicans are championing? If he's willing to compromise his beliefs on something as personal to him as torture, then where would he draw the line? At what point would he say "this is a line I will not cross"? How low is too low for him to sink?
Mike, this is what drives me crazy about the whole Bush thing.....he is hated by republicans for doing so many non-republican things. Spending, highest money spent on AIDS in Africa by any President EVER, more money spent on education than any President EVER. S-CHIP signed sealed and delivered by him and why did he not sign it in the forst place? was it because he wanted to watch children die and suffer, NO it was an inadequately funded bill and gave no provisions for illegals and was this reported after it was so famously touted as something it was not?? NO. He gave the program more money to the chagrin of republicans. Republicans hate him because he didn't VETO a piece of legislation for years republican or democrat and he gets ripped by both party's. I am sorry this irks me. John McCain is not getting championed by conservatives, ripped a new one is more like it. I just don't see what you see. It seems to me that some people on either side of the aisle will only be happy when their candidate is really the candidate for the other party. There is no middle ground for most Americans. There is only the ground they stand on. I think it is unfair. I am sure terrorists at Guatonomo Bay are curently being treated just fine. Unlike the innocent people they are senslessly murdering.....that doesn't seem to be as big of a concern to the left. The left is all about human rights until it comes to those who are oppressed. It seems to me they are concerned more for the oppressors...perhaps if the left cared as much for the innocent victims as much as they do the terrorists then I guess I would listen to their cause but it is blatantly partisanly prejidice.
Sorry to rant on your page......nice job getting my girdle in a knot AGAIN!!!! I am just keepin it real and so are you and that is what I appreciate. :)N
Hey, Nikki. You're welcome to rant on my blog anytime!
I do think it's unfair to say that the left doesn't care about the victims of terrorist attacks or people who are oppressed. Seems to me it was the Bush administration that stonewalled the 9/11 commission. They even tried to make Henry Kissinger the chairman.
Plus, what about the Anthrax killer? Bush doesn't seem too hopped up to find out who that was. All his victims were on the left, if I recall. Not a lot of concern from the right for them.
The reason that I say torture is wrong is because it degrades us. If we allow our government to strip away this one element of humanity, then what next? Executing suspected terrorists with a pistol, in the street? Maybe we could get some of our more gung-ho citizens to strap on a belt bomb and wander into a place where a lot of suspected terrorists are hanging out.
Torture is wrong. Always.
As for McCain, he is the Republican nominee. Conservatives are rallying behind him. (Romney endorsed him, for example.) Slightly less than half of the voters this fall will cast their vote for a man who was subjected to torture and has said flat-out that it doesn't work, but now endorses it. Perhaps conservatives of conscience should be casting their vote for Obama. (You know, in the real election, not just the primaries so Hillary loses.)
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