Apparently the Straight-Talk Express has gone crashing into a Jersey barrier somewhere West of Torture Town.
As we all know, John McCain, owing to his own experiences as a POW in Vietnam, has been one of the most vocal opponents of the use of torture by the United States against detainees. In fact, he argued forcefully last fall that only those interrogation techniques authorized by the U.S. Army field manual should be used by other agencies, particularly the CIA. This would prevent, particularly, the use of waterboarding by representatives of the United States.
However, when a bill came before Congress this week which would have done exactly that, McCain voted against it! This decision came, notably, right on the heels of his endorsement by Congressional Republican leaders. Apparently integrity will get you only so far in this business.
The real tragedy of this is that nobody could look upon McCain's opposition to torture as anything but a sincere expression of moral principle. It wasn't popular with his base, he stood in opposition to many in his own party, and it cost him, yet he continually stood up against the use of torture, until, of course, it became a question of getting the support of key Republicans going into the general election. This is a moral lapse of catastrophic proportions. And alas for any sense of integrity McCain might still have had, since it has now burned up and blown away on the wind.
Two related stories: Joe Lieberman, noted McCainiac, is now on the record as pro-torture:
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman reluctantly acknowledged Thursday that he does not believe waterboarding is torture, but believes the interrogation technique should be available only under the most extreme circumstances.
Lieberman was one of 45 senators who voted Wednesday in opposition to a bill that would limit the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method where detainees typically are strapped to a bench and have water poured into their mouth and nose making them feel as if they will drown.
Not torture. Sure. But only to be used under the most extreme circumstances? And why is that, if it's not torture? Presumably extremity is precisely the reason people resort to torture in the first place.
And finally, this piece of good news: Apparently we have NOT, I repeat NOT inherited the technique of waterboarding from the Spanish Inquisition. Nosiree. Our form of waterboard is of the sort practiced by the Khmer Rouge!
Yesterday Justice Department Official Steven Bradbury rallied to the defense of the CIA's use of waterboarding, arguing that the technique used by the CIA was nothing at all like the "water torture" used by the Spanish Inquisition. "The only thing in common is the use of water," he argued.
But as Marty Lederman, a veteran of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, writes, in distancing the CIA's technique from that used by the Spanish Inquisition and the Japanese in World War II, Bradbury made it plain that the technique he was describing was closer to "the sort popularized by the French in Algeria, and by the Khmer Rouge. This technique involves placing a cloth or plastic wrap over or in the person's mouth, and pouring or dripping water onto the person's head." He quotes Darius Rajali, author of Torture and Democracy, as saying that this technique was "invented by the Dutch in the East Indies in the 16th century, as a form of torture for English traders."
Don't you feel so much better?
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