McCain on Face the Nation:
A Republican senator who played a leading role in drafting new rules for U.S. interrogations of terrorism suspects said yesterday that he believes a compromise bill embraced by party leaders and the White House will bar some of the most extreme techniques said to have been used by the CIA.
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) named three measures that he said would no longer be allowed under a provision barring techniques that cause serious mental or physical suffering by U.S. detainees: extreme sleep deprivation, forced hypothermia and “waterboarding,” which simulates drowning. He also said other “extreme measures” would be banned.
McCain’s remarks were unusual because public officials involved in the lengthy public debate about U.S. interrogation practices have rarely made specific references to the CIA’s actions. Instead, they have made general claims about the need for rough interrogations or a desire to stop abusive behavior.
“It’s clear we have to have the high moral ground,” said McCain, a former POW tortured by prison guards in Vietnam, on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I am confident that some of the abuses that were reportedly committed in the past will be prohibited in the future.”
A couple of thoughts:
1.) This response by Captain Ed is just silly:
Bill Frist missed McCain’s appearance on CBS. He told ABC’s “This Week” that “no responsible person” would list the specific techniques allowed and disallowed in a public forum. Unfortunately, his colleague didn’t get that memo.
What kind of damage could this do? Islamists who watch American media will note the exceptions McCain listed and tell their operatives that they will not need to prepare for waterboarding and can prepare for less rigorous techniques. While it isn’t quite the same thing as telling them all of the approved techniques, it gives another edge to the Islamists — an edge we didn’t need to give them.
How do you prepare to ignore the gag reflex involved in waterboarding? And did we really think jihadists worldwide were spending days and weeks dipping their cohorts in freezing vats of water to ‘acclimate’ them to hypothermia?
2.) Does this mean that the administration and the right-wing blogosphere will now stop acting all John Wayne and actually admit that waterboarding is torture? Will they admit that this is abuse, and was, as McCain alluded, surrendering the moral high-ground to the terrorists? And if your first inclination is to tell me ‘But, but, but- you should see what they do to our guys,’ please save yourself the time.
Bombadil
Of all people to give any kind of credence to torture, to think that there are any circumstances under which it should be the policy of the United States, John McCain should know better. If he’s really the “maverick” the media want to portray, he should be taking his personal experiences, bringing them out to the public, and explaining that torture is just flat wrong. It doesn’t work, it’s degrading to both the tortured and the torturer, and it gives our enemies the go-ahead to use it on our soldiers. If we do it, we can’t complain if they do it.
There should be no shades of grey here for Sen. McCain. He knows exactly what’s involved and what it does to people.
EL
Thank you, John, for postings on this over the last week, and for recognizing that it isn’t about the terrorists, it’s about us.
The Other Steve
I pray that come November, the Republicans will pay for their support of torture.
Any party which has abandoned American values, does not deserve to be in control of Congress.
Richard Bottoms
How anyone who is a Democrat could be disappointed in McCain astounds. After all these years don’t people get it? He is a Republican and when politics demands it he votes like one, despite anything he says.
End of story.
Bombadil
McCain has proven himself to be a pimp. I’m not disappointed in him as a politician, I’m disappointed in him as a human being. He knows better, and should let his humanity guide him, not his politics.
And there’s no need to point out the obvious joke about politicians and human beings — I couldn’t figure out a way to word it differently on short noitice.
Mr Furious
Captain Ed and others like him seem to have conquered it.
I am referring, of course, to their deep-throating prowess with regards to the the President, but for those faint of heart, you can think of it as a built-up immunity to vomiting after receiveing their talking points if you like. Your choice.
Tsulagi
Well, maybe Captain Ed was speaking from experience. After years of being in the trenches with the Fluffers for Bush, he’s got his gag reflex under control. McCain is now in those trenches too.
Mr Furious
Mark Kleiman:
Keith
Just ignore Frist. He spouts oft-disjointed portions of talking points that’s one-part stream-of-consciousness and five-parts reading of mental cue cards.
“Defeat-ocrats like to, uh, cut ‘n run, so, uh, the islamofascists will acclimate themselves to our tools for stopping terrorisms and take comfort and aid from the Lamont-San Francisco wing of the Democr-I mean-Defeatocrat party.”
Mr Furious
Ah, Tsulagi, happy to have some company in the gutter…
Tsulagi
Furious,
Damn, beat out by two minutes on that point of view.
RSA
Frist was a complete puppet during his interview, dodging direct questions like, “Is waterboarding torture?” Amazing. I’d like an interview to ask one of these idiots whether they believe something like tearing out someone’s fingernails is torture. Would they say, “Yes,” but then refuse to comment on something that the CIA might do? Or would they refuse to comment at all, looking even more ridiculous? I think that what news coverage I’ve seen has done at least one thing right, in focusing on specific techniques that are allowed or disallowed by the law. We can’t just let people get away with saying, “We’ll do what we have to do to make America safe.” I want to hear exactly what they’re willing to do.
Punchy
Fixed.
Why does Congress even try anymore? Anything and everything they pass is just changed, altered, and manipulated by these signing statements. McCain HAS to know this.
Katinula
Thanks John for posting on this issue. I’ve been sick to my stomach all weekend regarding this supposed ‘compromise’. I had previously given the Democrats way too much credit on this issue, their silence in response to McCain, Graham, and Warner’s aquiescence is as shameful as the whole debacle.
And of course the terrorists didnt know we would or would not “water board” them. I mean, thats giving them way too much credit…I mean, they didnt know we electronically surveilled them either until that pesky NYT story. Its shocking how people so supposedly stupid are able to bring a free nation down so far as to legalize torture.
The Other Steve
It’s pretty common knowledge that John McCain desperately wants to be President and has been going around the country kissing ass after kicking ass in 2000.(which turned out to not be a wise strategy)
So he’s being quite political. He’s trying to pretend like he has morals, while at the same time pandering to the most immoral people in America.
The thing is, he lost their votes when he said torture was wrong. They don’t believe that, and as we all know whatever they believe is the God’s Honest Truth!
The Other Steve
They didn’t know they were emboldened by the Iraq war either until the NYTimes told them so!
Do people seriously think they are that stupid?
ThymeZone
As the senior Arizona voter here (I think), just let me say this about John McCain:
{ loud raspberry sound with lots of saliva }
And, did you catch the clip of him yesterday “responding” to the NIE assessment?
He says, with a look that reminds me of a dog just caught swallowing your shoelaces …. well, we have to win the psychological war. Yeah, that’s why we have to stay the course in Iraq, to win a psychological war.
Thus has the former POW here sunk to the bottom … our fighting men and women should be sent into hell to win a psychological war.
The mind boggles.
ThymeZone
sorry … “POW hero”
srv
Well, of the torture techniques, you can do alot of conditioning for short-term exposure to cold water. Long-term exposure (cold cell), I doubt it.
t. jasper parnell
I have posted all this before, but what the hell.
From Lieutenant General John Kimmons, deputy chief of staff for intelligence on the new field manual :
Interrogators
[General Kimmon direct qoute]
quoted and cited George Packer, The New Yorker, September 18, 2006, 26
Richard 23
Yeah, but it’s hard to take someone calling himself “Captain Ed” and fancies himself in the “Captain’s Quarters” unless it’s talk like a pirate day or he’s serving as a Captain in the navy.
Does he suggest we make naughty Islamofascists walk the plank and threaten them with Davey Jones’ Locker? Does Ed drink a lot of rum and chortle? That could be, I suppose. Arrr.
Absolutely not. You’re kidding right? When has the administration or their cheerleaders ever admitted to a single mistake or white lie or any consequence?
Richard 23
Don’t be silly. Tearing out fingernails is unlikely to cause organ failure…same goes for waterboarding. Not only has the definition of torture been updated so has the word terrorist. Watch your words, commie, or you might be labelled an enemy combatant. You wouldn’t like that, now would you?
So quit hating on America, get with the program and cheer for the home team.
Bruce Moomaw
Now, why can’t I come up with jokes as good as “Richard 23’s”?
I will add, though, that it’s equally cretinous to suppose that you can “prepare” for being kept awake for days at a time or for being forced to stand for 48 consecutive hours.
SeesThroughIt
Some of them, do, yes. It’s that chest-thumping machismo thing: “We’re the U S of fuckin’ A! They’re a bunch of camel jockeys who hate our freedom because they’re too stupid to understand it!” They think Osama is just Corky Thatcher with a beard and turban. And yet they’ll call anybody who disagrees with them “unserious about the war.” As Homer Simpson would say, the ironing is delicious.
Bruce Moomaw
Actually, tearing out fingernails IS a firm no-no under the current rules (it leaves a permanent scar). However, the use of electricity or injected pain-inducing chemicals to cause “intense physical pain” apparently is NOT, unless it causes “bodily injury” — which it doesn’t, unless you overdo it and scar the victim or permanently damage his nervous system or kill him.
At any rate, the definition — instead of simply forbidding “intense physical pain” — outlaws such pain ONLY if it’s associated with “bodily injury”, and Marty Lederman says it was explicitly written that way to allow continued use of most, and probably all, of the techniques the CIA is already using.
Bruce Moomaw
Bad news: Andrew Sullivan — in today’s blog entry “Torture Nation” — says flatly that McCain has indeed folded, and quotes an extensive excerpt from McCain’s interview yesterday on “Face the Nation” to support this, which I’m afraid I find convincing. It turns out that the Washington Post completely misquoted him; he said only that the current torture techniques “could” perhaps be banned under the rules, and that if the White House thinks they aren’t, it has to announce that fact in the Federal Registry at some (unspecified) time in the future. He also said that he didn’t feel any need to get a flat-out ban because he’s “confident” that this Administration will agree with his interpretation of the law. Right.
Dreggas
First time reader and commenter.
Anyway electricity will inevitibly be used, after all tasers are considered non-lethal and issued to police, you can buy a stun gun from the internet.
As for some comments I saw on another of John’s posts regarding how long it will be before civilian law enforcement is using these tactics remember how long it took before PD’s at the city level no longer had concrete suspects….they had persons of interest…
gus
Special Ed is a tool in more ways than one. Don’t expect anything from silliness from him.