McCain Misses Mark on Torture at Republican Debate

Bottom Line Up Front:  John McCain was unable to define torture at the Republican Debate last night.

At the second Republican Presidential Debate last night in Columbia, SC, John McCain discussed torture as a means of stopping terrorist attacks (debate transcript): 

The law in question is the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 supported by President Bush, which Republican Senators McCain, John Warner and Lindsey Graham opposed.  The Act states:

No person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.

In General- No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

In 2005, Time Magainze obtained an “interrogation log” for detainee 063 which they thought would be damning evidence of torture at Gitmo. “Torture” includes:

• MPs (military police) wrestled thrashing, spitting detainee to the ground after he head butted an MP.
• Detainee was told no one loved, cared for or remembered him.
• smiley-face mask made from MRE box was placed over detainees face for few moments after telling detainee how ungrateful and grumpy he was.
• interrogators made puppet show satirizing detainee’s involvement with Al-Qaeda.
• waking detainee with Christina Aguilera music
• making him stand for the playing of American national anthem

If these heinous acts of violence against an innocent terrorist weren’t enough, Donald Rumsfeld approved 16 stronger interrogation methods due to the “resilience under pressure” by Detainee 063. Some of these drastic new measures included allowed for:

• standing for prolonged periods
• isolation for up to 30 days
• removal of clothing
• forced shaving of facial hair
• playing on “individual phobias” (such as dogs)
• “mild, non-injurious physical contact” such as grabbing, poking in the check with finger, light pushing.
• use of wet towel or dripping water to induce misperception of suffocation.
• longer interrogation sessions.
• dripping water over head to arouse from sleep.

Richard Miniter visited and investigated detainee treatment at Guantanamo Bay and reported on his investigation in his article  A Deadly Kindness.  In it, Miniter writes:

America has never faced an enemy who has so ruthlessly broken all of the rules of war - yet never has an enemy been treated so well.

The military recorded 3,232 incidents of detainee misconduct from July 2005 to August 2006 - an average of more than eight incidents per day. Some are nonviolent, but the tally includes coordinated attacks involving everything from throwing bodily fluids on guards (432 times) to 90 stabbings with homemade knives.

One detainee slashed a doctor who was trying to save his life; the doctors wear body armor to treat their patients.

Some 20 current detainees have direct personal knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and nearly everyone of the current 440 say they would be honored to attack America again. Let’s take them at their word.

John McCain deserves a tremendous amount of respect and consideration on his opinion of torture based on his personal experience. He is a national hero. But upon closer examination, his dialogue about torture becomes a sound byte rather than a brutally honest look at the issue. The “aggressive technique” in question is waterboarding. Is it inhumane? Possibly. The question then becomes, How much rope does the United States give its enemy to hang us with? Comparing the torture of what John McCain endured at the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam to the treatment of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay and their 3 meals a day, provision for their free expression of religion by which they justify our destruction and supervised interrogation sessions is either disingenuous or misguided sympathy based on personal trauma.  WAR CANNOT BE WON BY SENTIMENTALITY OR GUIDED BY EMOTIONAL TRAUMA.  This is where John McCain has gone wrong.

McCain also asserted that our enemies would learn from our example of torture and in turn torture our soldiers if captured. With all due respect to the honorable senator, the reason we’re in a global war against terrorists is because we have an enemy that hates us, not emulates us, who abuses our humanity, not cowers from our torture, and who knows our political fortitude for warfare is far weaker than theirs.

Al-Qaeda who says they hold three U.S. soldiers hostage in Iraq says do NOT fear us because we are too humane, nor do they respect the humanity.  To the contrary, they use it, manipulate it and play our heart strings like a banjo.  They are not watching America’s example of fair detainee treatment…. They have already tortured and murdered our soldiers in the past not out of fear or self defense, but out of an evil so diabolical most Americans cannot imagine the depths of their hatred. 

McCain is right that America does not torture, and that this is about America…. and American needs to show the diabolical murderers of the world that while we uphold the value of humanity, we uphold OURS more than THEIRS, for if we do not value our own, we elevate our enemy above ourselves.  In this context, the victory is theirs.

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Comments

[spree]

Awesome points you make, I added a link to this post as an update on my GOP coverage.

Also voted for you at RCP!!!

[Mark Krauss]

first off I'd say McCain, as an actual POW who has suffered torture just might be a bit jumpy whenever interrogation is talked about. My problem with him is that his answer showed he has more concern with world opinion of the US than he has with American lives, and that worries me. why he took the take he did worries me too, if millions of american lives are at stake, and a president has an operative in custody who might know the plan, he better get what info he can, right?

I'd like to get McCain's answer as to just what he thinks is torture that you'd find in the Army's field manual, you'd think after what he's been through from the NVA, he would laugh at what today's libs call torture. he just seems to look at issues from a strange angle sometimes.

[Karen]

Um... I read the list, and to me, those things don't really qualify as torture, with the possible exception of being made to listen to Christina Aguilera's music.

When I think of torture, I think of pulling out fingernails, electric shocks, needles, etc.
Liberals think that being deprived of cable television is torture.

[Very Rev. Fr. Gregori]

Yes, McCain is misguided. No body in their right mind likes torture, but to say and insist that if we treat the POWs, that we take, with love and kindness, they will follow suit with our soldiers that they take prisoner. Excuse me, but when has this ever been true? It wasn't true during World War I & II, it wasn't true during the Korean war nor during the Vietnam War.

We never treat our POWs anywhere near the way our soldiers were treated by any of our enemies, yet our enemies continued to treat our soldiers that were captured, in such barbaric ways, so Sen. McCain, where is the tit for tat? Our enemies, especially the Islamists, are laughing at us. I'm sorry, but we cannot win this war by being nice and kissing butts.

[Amy P]

Thanks, spree!

Mark, I agree. I almost want to give him this argument based on his horrible years as a POW. But too much is at stake. He is, as you said, apparently more concerned about US reputation than US security. But I would expect McCain to be incredibly uneasy about this topic applying to anyone, even his enemies.

[Johnny]

"Um... I read the list, and to me, those things don't really qualify as torture, with the possible exception of being made to listen to Christina Aguilera's music."

LOL!!!!

[Silke]

Waterboarding is torture and should never be used. I think General Petraeus said it best:

Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary. Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone “talk;” however, what the individual says may be of questionable value. In fact, our experience in applying the interrogation standards laid out in the Army Field Manual (2-22.3) on Human Intelligence Collector Operations that was published last year shows that the techniques in the manual work effectively and humanely in eliciting information from detainees.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/images/blogs/news_blog/Values%20Message.pdf

I think this article had some interesting thoughts as well.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/16/AR2007051602395_pf.html

[Amy Proctor]

I will read those links, Silke. I certainly do not want to endorse torture, and am not positive waterboarding falls into that category.