Yesterday Congress passed a bill that would limit CIA interrogators to techniques found in the Army Field Manual - which expressly forbids waterboarding. President Bush has vowed to veto the bill. Senator and Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain voted against the bill.
Senate Passes Ban on Waterboarding.


Are his reasons valid for voting against this bill?

What are the political implications of this vote for a Presidential Candidate who has been outspoken regarding his views on techniques like waterboarding?

Are his reasons valid for voting against this bill?

Yes

What are the political implications of this vote for a Presidential Candidate who has been outspoken regarding his views on techniques like waterboarding?

He has made his views on this issue clear so this vote has no political implications. Not for McCain at least, but it is interesting that both Senators Obama and Clinton weren't present for the vote. Why not one must wonder..... At least McCain had the guts to go on the record. Why didn't they? And, why didn't entspeak raise that as in issue in this thread?

Aquilla

Are his reasons valid for voting against this bill?

Are McCain's reasons "valid?" According to the Washington Post article defended his vote against the bill this way:

Congress banned any military use of waterboarding and other harsh tactics through the Detainee Treatment Act of 2006, which was co-sponsored by Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), now the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination.

But McCain sided with the Bush administration yesterday on the waterboarding ban passed by the Senate, saying in a statement that the measure goes too far by applying military standards to intelligence agencies. He also said current laws already forbid waterboarding, and he urged the administration to declare it illegal.

"Staging a mock execution by inducing the misperception of drowning is a clear violation" of laws and treaties, McCain said.

So McCain is saying the proposed ban goes too far and current laws already rule out waterboarding. Of course he knows there isn't a snowball's chance of The Bush Administration declared the practice illegal.

The real issue here is, does McCain's vote open him up to charges of being a hypocrite or carrying the water (no pun intended) for Bush? Nope. McCain is pretty much on record being outspoken against torture and already has established his opposition to it. Despite his inevitable status as the Republican presidential candidate, this isn't the sort of issue that turns voters for or against him.


What are the political implications of this vote for a Presidential Candidate who has been outspoken regarding his views on techniques like waterboarding?

As I said before, McCain won't suffer from his "no" vote one way or the other. To Aquilla's point though that McCain deserves props for showing up whereas Senators Obama and Clinton missed the vote, that doesn't mean much either. It's fairly obvious that both Democrats would have voted for the bill. It would have just put on the public record their opposition to waterboarding. The margin of victory isn't enough to override the guaranteed Bush veto, so two more votes really isn't going to change the bill's final fate.

However, McCain doesn't really deserve any props because he happened to be in Washington. He also voted for retroactive immunity for telecoms that turned over the phone and Internet records of customers to The Bush Administration (Obama was one of only 31 Senators--all Democrats---to vote against immunity, while Clinton missed the vote).

In the 110th Congress, McCain missed 257 out of 465 votes, racking up a whopping 55 percent of no-shows/no votes. The only Senator to surpass that number was Tim Johnson of South Dakota who was disabled by a brain hemorrhage. Obama missed the third most votes (38 percent) and Clinton was seventh (26 percent).

McCain has missed a LOT of votes making him the last guy who can talk about others not standing up to be counted.

It's Senator Straight Talk who leads the way in not showing up for work.

What McCain said was he was against waterboarding but would not agree to restrict interrogators to the “Army field manual”. Which is what a "yes" vote would have done.

And I too find it odd that neither Hillary or Obama voted or have expressed a public position on the specifics.

Does anyone know the bill number or the name of this bill that the article is talking about? I would be interested in finding out if there are other topics in the bill that would make it ripe for the veto pen. Is waterboarding the only issue addressed, or are there many others that make the bill too far reaching?

I too wonder why on such an important issue that both Senator Obama and Clinton found better things to do. This is exactly my point about the thread about getting paid to run for President. I would think that the majority of the citizens would find this bill to be one of the more important ones, but these two Senators decided not to show up for a vote.

But I digress. I think before we hang people in the gallows, we find out everything about the bill. Apparently, there are laws already banning the use of waterboarding. Why do we need another one? Who is this bill specifically directed at? The military? The CIA? Everyone? What other provisions are being banned? I think we need to know more.

Methinks there is a certain amount of "odd wondering" that could be easily dispelled if a little more research was done and a lot less false indignation.

From the February 1 Sacramento Bee: Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois has been straightforward: "No administration should allow the use of torture, including so-called 'enhanced interrogation techniques' like water-boarding, head-slapping and extreme temperatures. It's time that we had a Department of Justice that upholds the rule of law and American values, instead of finding ways to enable the president to subvert them." He has said, "Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them. Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. Torture is how you set back America's standing in the world, not how you strengthen it."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has condemned torture, but declined to take a stand on specific techniques. A Washington Post interview of October 2007 captured her position. She began: "We should not conduct or condone torture." Then she focused on Bush era techniques, not on what she would allow as president: "It is not clear yet exactly what this administration is or isn't doing, we're getting all kinds of mixed messages. I don't think we'll know the truth until we have a new president. I think once you can get in there and actually bore into what's been going on, you're not going to know." Her conclusion: "I think we have to draw a bright line and say, 'No torture – abide by the Geneva Conventions, abide by the laws we have passed,' and then try to make sure we implement that." link

So why not go back to Washington and do their jobs? If McCain had skipped this vote, I would put him right in there with them. Heck, he is more guilty of missing votes than the other two, if I am not mistaken. If he can make this vote, I think everyone can make the vote!

Well, I didn't mention it because being not present to vote is not a yay or a nay vote. I raised this issue about McCain because he appears to have contradicted himself. I didn't bring that up in the opening post because I wanted the opening question to remain as neutral as possible. Obviously, some people will find a conspiracy wherever they look.

So, McCain voted against this bill because he doesn't want to restrict the CIA to the Army Field Manual.

He didn't seem to have a problem with the Army Field Manual when countering Mitt Romney during the Republican Debates:



In 2005, McCain proposed an amendment to a military spending bill, The McCain Detainee Amendment that would restrict interrogation techniques used by all to those authorized in the Army Field Manual.

Now, he's voted no against this bill because he doesn't want to restrict the CIA to techniques authorized in the Army Field Manual.

Nobody thinks that's a huge flip-flop?

Nope, the CIA is not part of the Department of Defense. Military law should not rule the CIA. That is what he is saying. Besides, according to the article. there is already a law prohibiting waterboarding. Pretty much sums up this debate from my viewpoint.

Okay. That is what he's saying now. But it is not what he said during the debates and it is not what he proposed in 2005. Your saying that isn't a flip flop?



Oh, boy. And the Administration has already claimed that the existing law is not specific enough to adequately express whether waterboarding is illegal.

The Army General addressed the military laws that govern the actions of the military personnel. Aside from all of that, we don't know what else is in that bill. Just because waterboarding is the topic of discussion, doesn't mean that there aren't other provisions that are too far reaching. Let's get the facts first, shall we?

Are his reasons valid for voting against this bill?

No. I think the real reason McCain voted as he did was to shore up support among the conservative base that still supports Bush. So much for the “Straight Talk Express.”

What are the political implications of this vote for a Presidential Candidate who has been outspoken regarding his views on techniques like waterboarding?

From entspeak’s original link


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8021302888.html

This vote along with his statement about being in Iraq for 100 years will come back to bite John McCain in the butt. That’s too bad. I have [had?] a certain grudging respect for the man. Strategically he should be running away from Bush as hard as he can.

BTW: Isn’t it interesting that we are quibbling on another thread about the actions of four members of the U. S. House of representatives, when we have a leading presidential candidate voting against a bill to outlaw waterboarding and a sitting president is poised to veto the measure.

This veto would be a fitting late component of Bush’s already tarnished legacy.

What the fact that McCain said he voted against the bill because he didn't want to restrict the CIA to the Army Field Manual isn't enough frame a debate? The fact that he proposed an amendment to a bill in 2005 that would have done the very thing he doesn't want to happen now isn't enough to frame a debate? The fact that he used the Army Field Manual as a point in Presidential Debates isn't enough to frame a debate?

Yes I believe his reasons for voting for this bill are valid, but I don't believe they are the true reason he voted "no".

Ted


Why?? The reason why McCain voted the way he did and Barack and Hilary didn't. Is for the same exact reason. The Republican SPIN Machine. You should know that Ted, I'm pretty sure you work for it.

McCain is going to be the nominee he needs to sacrifice his morality to have a shot at bringing some of his base to him. The Spin machine needs to work overtime to show Republicans that McCain is down to do whatever it takes to "save American lives" in the "new time" of "terror"

Barack and Hilary can go on record saying they are against torture. But they the republican spin machine can spin it to it masses that the voted against a bill that would "allow intelligence officer to agressively question terror suspects in times of a national emergency."


After eight years you'd think conservatives were aware of how their main party uses fear mongering to acheive votes... but It would be stupid for Barack and Hilary to tak that chance.

You honestly try to make the Democratic Party the victims here? Do you suggest that the Democratic Party does no spinning? Talk about hypocricy! Wow, I had a lot more respect for your viewpoints thirty seconds ago, Droop. Making this a ®vs(D) issue pretty much makes me believe no matter what I said, you would join Entspeak and BoF in saying whatever you could to not further the debate, but to bash an entire political party. You all can have fun with this one. I see it as nothing worth wasting any more time on. Have a peach of a day!

I'm sorry, but I don't recall bashing an entire Political Party. One would think I would remember such a thing occurring. I mean, so very few posts to review.

Where exactly did I attempt to prevent the furthering of the debate?

Couldn't you have PM'd me this?? And me and Entspeak have had some hefty disagreements in the past if i remember, correctly.

I mean really I gave you the reason I think the vote went down the way it went down. Do you realize there is even a term of "swift boating" to describe mischaracterizing someone's record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiftboating

You see to say "Democrats spin too" doesn't make two things equal. How much and to what degree does make a difference. So yes Dems spin, but they in no way have the veracity or the lack of scruples that the Republican machine does. Or maybe I have it wrong... maybe Republicans are just easier to be spun... A decorate war hero was a cravenly coward... a rich kid with a silver spoon in his mouth since birth, who never saw a tour had the strength and resolve to fight a war of our generation...

Doesn't matter. John McCain is as much victim as Hillary and Barack are scared to be. Many will see this as lack of integrity of a genuine war hero, with a record of integrity. But the selling of ones soul never comes cheap, now does it.

And it wasn't me that brought up Barack and Hillary . As said before by Nighttimer, Barack is very clear that he against torture and that he veiws waterboarding as torture. WE know his position and we know Hillary. We know that Bush has vowed to veto the bill if it were to pass. We know there were not enough votes in favor to override such a veto.

Barack or Hillary voting was unimportant in terms of end results. McCain vote was necessary for the Republican spin machine only.

This is the relevant language from the article you cite:

"Congress banned any military use of waterboarding and other harsh tactics through the Detainee Treatment Act of 2006, which was co-sponsored by Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), now the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination.

But McCain sided with the Bush administration yesterday on the waterboarding ban passed by the Senate, saying in a statement that the measure goes too far by applying military standards to intelligence agencies. He also said current laws already forbid waterboarding, and he urged the administration to declare it illegal.

"Staging a mock execution by inducing the misperception of drowning is a clear violation" of laws and treaties, McCain said. "

What this all boils down to is who is being waterboarded. McCain acknowledges that under the Geneva convention, as it applies to uniformed military personnel, waterboarding is illegal. He has gone on the record as saying torture is not effective and that if we use torture on other troops, they will use it on ours. All well and good.

This issue gets much more interesting when we are discussing terrorists who are not uniformed personnel in the military service of a nation who has signed the Geneva accords. I could care less what our intel people do with a non--U.S. citizen who is engaged by Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, etc. These persons are not part of regular military units organized by nations and their operatives are not protected by the Geneva accords.

With these types of folks, I would argue their very membership in such organizations has constituted a waiver of any rights they may have been afforded by the world of civilized nations. Our intel folks should do with them what they deem most effective for the goals we have set. If we choose not to torture them, it should be because we deem it ineffective, not because these individuals deserve, either morally or under any treaty, a better fate. Clearly, we owe such individuals nothing. So, I would leave the decision how to treat such persons to the professionals, not the policy makers. This may or may not be McCain's stand--it is mine--but I would have no trouble with McCain if he did believe this way.

Finally, without reading the Congressional Record, we really do not know what is in the bill and what McCain's real reasons were for voting "no". All we know is what was digested by someone who likely has an axe to grind--perhaps a Democratic axe.

Of course, philosophically speaking, that argument falls rather flat. Simply wearing a uniform or being on a certain team doesn't make anyone genetically or biologically superior. AQ commits heinous acts. So has the US. The argument that AQ members should be treated to torture and debasement, while we get rightous indignation when it happens to our guys is morally corrupt.
The resumes of the 'civilized' nations compares quite easily to Hezbollah and AQ. That torture is fine for them seems a rather specious argument.

Or, you could do your own research and find out.

That is, after all, what you told me yesterday after I had praised entspeak's research. Beware of what you write. It may come back to haunt you.

So you equate waterboarding 3 people with the beheading and murdering of civilians including women and children and the brutal torture and mutilation of US soldiers in uniform?

The guys in GITMO have it better than any POWs in the last century – that’s for sure.

Thanks Ted, I won the bet with myself as to who would respond first and in what tone.

So you equate the US military with a sort of moral superiority that gives us the right to treat untermenchen as we see fit? We saw how that arrogance has worked out in the past.

When we commit torture, we debase ourselves, and place our virtue on the same level as those that we vilify.

Genetically or biologically superior? Where does that come from? The AQ or Hez members have no legal standing under the Geneva accords, so they do not deserve treatment under them. They are illegal combatants. They have no protection under international law. We owe them nothing.

If we choose not to torture them, it should only be because the experts tell us it is not effective (and most of what I read indicates torture generally is not effective), not because we owe them some duty of care. I would treat a pet goldfish with more care than I would treat an al Qaeda member.

As for your flip comment about the U.S. commiting "heinous acts", I will make two statements: first, if a foreign nation believes that and wants to do something about it, they know where to find us, which is more than one can say about terrorists; and second, this nation does have a conscience, and it tends to reel in our behavior when it crosses the line--and I will agree with you, we have from time-to-time crossed the line I would draw. I am not so sure the same can be said about bin Laden and his band of merry men--this band that tied explosives to two retarded women and blew them to bits in Baghdad. I doubt you'll see any apologies from al Qaeda for this act. By contrast, we fell all over ourselves about abu Grahib.

It is very fashionable for the young and naive of the USA to complain about our nation from the comfort of their computer terminal, in their room where they have the Che Gueverra poster hanging. It would be quite another thing to make such complaints if you grew up in, say, Burma. It might give you an entirely new perspective.

thing is wearing a uniform and being a member of an organized military ARE requirements of protection under the geneva convention,

and the GC spells out what you are allowed to do with combatants who try to subvert it rules,


a 0.45" hole in the temple is the standard, but you can let your mind wander on with that if you will.




UNTERMENCHEN?

I don't think we are racially superior, If they want to play by the rules, cool let's go, and they will recieve the treatment they deserve under the GC,

if they don't fine, they will recieve the treatment they deserve under the GC.

we dont debase ourselves when the rules are plainly written out, and they have been for many years now.

I concur, just as it's fashionable for red blooded American 'patriots' to say I would treat a pet goldfish with more care than I would treat an al Qaeda member.



True, but only after being exposed in the media.



So we owe them torture? Killing them on the battlefield or incarcerating them for indefinite periods of time before finally trying them in a military court isn't enough? We have to inflict pain and humiliation on them, covering it with arguable assertions that torture makes the interrogated spill honest information?



I'm not advocating giving Gitmo detainees cable TV and Ping Pong tables. I don't even believe we should require ourselves to provide them with Korans, but by conducting torture we debase ourselves to the same level as the enemy that we vilify for being 'evil'. If you believe that torture keeps us civilied and morally superior to AQ, you are welcome to your beliefs.

I guess I am just getting too old for the black and white certainty many display. We all know that no one in the world ever treated POWs better than we do today and in past wars as well.

To say that we must treat all prisoners the same sounds good but I can assure you if thousands of Americans are killed, potentially our families, and it is discovered we held a person with operational knowledge we did not get because we could not roughly interrogate him, there would be a lot of very angry Americans.

With this enemy we are past the point that an attack is going to be a military attack against military or even strictly industrial targets. This enemy would enjoy, even relish, killing innocent civilians by the 10s of thousands and in a world of WMD that is entirely possible.

That's a mighty bold statement. Are you positive that the British Commonwealth treated German POW's worse than we did? Your statement is irrelevant if we conduct torture as a matter of policy. We then become no more virtuous than any other regome we have lambasted for conducting torture. If you believe in two moral playing fields, one for us and one for them, and you feel no hypocrisy, then you no leg to stand on when US soldiers are tortured now or in the fuiture. Note, we're not speaking of executions, before you bring your beheading rhetoric into play.



And you're argument sounds compelling, except for the hypothetical nature of it.

I think there is a difference between very specific use of "aggressive questioning" on very limited specific targets who are well motivated to not provide us with the info we need, I dont believe we systemattically torture every detainee at gitmo or even more than a handful at abu grahib. the limited use of "aggressive" techniques has given us some very good intel, when it is very limited and used on very specific target .

I would agree with you if it were systematically used or even if it were used regularly,

But i find it facinating that all of this is over the waterboarding of 3 high value targets,

This quandary is easily solved. If torture *is* the only solution to the "ticking time bomb" scenario, then the torturer should be willing to suffer the consequences of his actions. Prior to the torture, the torturer reports that torture will take place. After the vital information is extracted, the torturer is then incarcerated or put to death immediately. There...problem solved.

I agree with GA above. We have shown no inclination to tourture all dtainees. High value knowlegable captives need to be coereced to give up information.


What is hypothetical. The terrorists are known to have studied WMD of various kinds and are actively trying to get their hands on them.

“With the loss of its Afghan sanctuary following the U.S. intervention in 2001, there was a question as to what role weapons of mass destruction (WMD) would play in al-Qaeda’s newly evolving strategy. Al-Qaeda has taken advantage of its recently assumed role as the ideological and strategic brain for the global jihad to create an environment from which a variety of jihadi elements can participate in acquiring and employing chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons.

Al-Qaeda has opened the door for its supporters to use CBRN weapons to further the goals of the global jihad. To this end, al-Qaeda has provided the religious, practical, and strategic justifications to engage in CBRN activities. These steps have served to strengthen the acceptance of such weapons within sympathetic audiences, dispelled objections to unconventional attacks and prepared the ground for jihadi leaders to operationalize CBRN weapons into their repertoire of tactics. Departing from its previous reliance on in-house production and management of CBRN weapons, al-Qaeda is now encouraging other groups to acquire and use CBRN weapons with or without its direct assistance.

Al-Qaeda began the process of incorporating this dynamic before the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. In response to the testing of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in 1998, Osama bin Ladin praised the efforts of the first Muslim state to defend itself through WMD and encouraged other Muslims to follow Pakistan’s example [1]. Shortly after these developments, bin Ladin was interviewed by Jamal Isma’il in December of 1998 over U.S. charges that al-Qaeda was aggressively pursuing CBRN. Bin Ladin asserted that using the word “charge” was misleading in that it implies a wrong doing. Rather, according to bin Ladin, “it is the duty of Muslims to posses them [WMD],” and that “the United States knows that with the help of Almighty Allah the Muslims today possess these weapons” [2].

However, these do not constitute the most direct threats of WMD deployment by the terror network. In fact, purported al-Qaeda trainer Abu Muhammad al-Ablaj continued the preparation for eventual WMD use when he forebodingly said in 2003 that, “as to the use of Sarin gas and nuclear [weapons], we will talk about them then, and the infidels will know what harms them”

Al-Qaeda’s leadership has made a concerted effort to prepare its audiences for a WMD attack. However, it has been argued that since the historical volume of direct references to WMD by al-Qaeda has been relatively low, this somehow displays a disinterest in or unlikelihood of WMD playing a role in the terror network’s future. Al-Qaeda operative Muhammad al-Ablaj has already responded to this argument when he asked: “Is there a sane person who discloses his [WMD] secrets?” [13] A second explanation is that what has already been presented has adequately justified WMD use, and thus there is little more to be said until a need for further guidance presents itself, such as it did for al-Suri. Whether by al-Qaeda core cadres, those answering al-Suri’s calls, or e-mujahideen inspired by their own arguments and supported by al-Qaeda’s justifications, CBRN weapons are likely to be employed by jihadi forces in the not-so-distant future.

http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/ar...p?issue_id=3502

So we retain our national virtue and moral superiority by only torturing some detainees?



The hypothetical as you well know centers on the supposed catastrophic event, and our subsequent knowledge that Detainee A had information to stop it. Makes for debate fodder when the debater does not want to address the philosophical implications of our conduct of torture.



Because this is a debate between people who believe torture to be wrong in all cases, and people who have a sliding scale and an adjustable moral compass.

Wow, that is an incredible statement, I have BEEN waterboarded, during my training in the USAF. I can tell you that it is unpleasant but it is not bamboo under the fingernails. I do not condone the use of real torture, but pain compliance is not always the same as torture. unless you consider spanking an unruley 2 year old torture. p

I'm happy for you that you were waterboarded. Of course it's not bamboo under the fingernails, it's simulated drowning. Waterboarding can kill you, bamboo can cause a nasty nailbed infection. I hardly think the two are interchangable.

I'm amazed at the re-wording of torture into "pain compliance" and "aggressive questioning". But in the opinion of most outside the Bush Administration and it's supporters, waterboarding does equal torture, and as such is illegal under the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005 and the Military Commissions Act in 2006, the 1949 UN Convention against Torture and the Geneva Convention. In fact the US legal code defines torture as an action specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.

So unless you simply live by the "our team is better than their team, so we can do what we want" mentality, your argument appears to be on rather spongy ground.

Ted, here is what it sounds like to me. You really don't care much about moral authority because we're talking about people that cut other people's heads off. Given this, they deserve anything they get if it helps us.

Fair enough - let's say we should shelve common decency if it protects us.

Given this, how can you make the argument that terrorism is bad? Obviously, to us, murdering non-combatants is brutal, wrong, and as despicable as anything we can imagine.

But that's because it affects our morality. But to the cultures that promote this behavior, it's not bad. It gets them into heaven with 72 virgins. It cleanses their souls. Anybody killed incidentally is "martyred". Death is not a bad thing to them.

The point is, all your arguments can be used by the same people we all detest so much. Their actions become no different from ours because we both believe our brutal causes to be "just". We look at death as the worst thing that can be inflicted upon us. They look at death as the entrance to a new and better life. To them, death is a blessing.

You can't lower standards of decency to fit our cause because of you do, you allow others to do the same.

waterboarding cannot kill you, you will lose concousness and go into very evident hypoxia, leaving a subject submerged for minutes beyond loss of concousness would not be waterboarding, that would be drowning, and should be subject to the same criminal charges.

so lets please quit with the drama.

No drama here, I'm not posting Jack Bauer scenarios or comparing AQ as having less worth than goldfish. I stated that compared to bamboo under the fingernails [which you implied to be harsher than waterboarding], waterboarding can kill you.

"Waterboarding taken to its extreme, could be death - you could drown someone," McConnell acknowledged. He said waterboarding remains a technique in the CIA's arsenal, but it would require the consent of the president and legal approval of the attorney general.
Link

Bamboo under the fingernails is not deadlier than waterboarding. Breaking various bones throughout the extremities and body is not deadlier than waterboarding. Cutting out a person's tongue is not deadlier than waterboarding. Large objects in a prisoner's butt is not deadlier than waterboarding. Branding a prisoner's testicles with a hot iron is not deadlier than waterboarding.

Obviously, I could go on. Why stop at waterboarding? Because it helps you sleep better at night?

What are the political implications of this vote for a Presidential Candidate who has been outspoken regarding his views on techniques like waterboarding?


What ever happened to the straight talk express? I know no politician can be perfect, unflagging, consistent... governance isn't consistent, and politics shouldn't force consistency, either.

But take away John McCain's reliability, his honesty, and his common sense rhetoric, and you're left with a silhouette of a presidential candidate: a lousy public speaker who rallies no enthusism with his own base, and will have trouble winning over vaunted independents given his stance on the deeply unpopular Iraq war.

They say Barack is the stylistic candidate, but to me, McCain is all style. On the most important issues -- recession and war -- he is way out of sync with the American public: he is devoutly pro-war, and not much of an economics guy, either. To get over, I think he'll need to reassure voters that he says what he means, and even if you don't like it, he speaks from a place of knowledge and experience.

But then... he goes an flips over on his torture vote. Compare John McCain two months ago, via reporter Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, to John McCain today:




Need I say more? This is not smart politicking by John McCain... And I won't even say what this passes for as governance.

What are the political implications of this vote for a Presidential Candidate who has been outspoken regarding his views on techniques like waterboarding?

The implications are that if this point was negotiable in the light of a Presidential campaign (his own imprisonment and torture experiences notwithstanding), what else would Senator McCain be willing to go against his own word on as President?

(And the GOP went after Kerry for "flip-flopping"... )


I concur with DTOM's sentiment. What happened to the concept of honor? Does that go out the window when dealing with enemies we consider to be despicable for their treatment of our people? If so, we might as well also throw the idea of being morally superior to the enemy out the window as well.

What happened to "winning the hearts and minds" of the people of Iraq (or Afghanistan) by showing them that people who live in a democracy don't practice the barbarism that the terrorists do?

Maybe McCain thinks just like Joe Lieberman:

"Lieberman added that while waterboarding is a "terrifying experience," the victim "is in no real danger" because "the impact is psychological."
***
"The ban was much too broad," Lieberman said."

Oh, and Dayton, you wrote:

"Bamboo under the fingernails is not deadlier than waterboarding."

Ever hear of sepsis? You run the risk of developing sepsis with every break in the skin. Here's what I mean:

"The risk of neonatal sepsis or tetanus is significant in some hilltribe villages, where midwives lacking proper equipment or training may cut the umbilical cord after delivery with a bamboo sliver and paint the umbilical stump with charcoal."

If you haven't figured it out yet, that why Cruising Ram stated his objection to the mandatory testing of some, i.e., with every puncture on testing, we risk that someone dies of sepsis. And from the Daily Mail:

[i]"Few outside the medical profession understand it [sepsis] or even know about it, but it's the third most common cause of death for hospitalised patients in the developed world, behind heart disease and cancer.

Sepsis is actually an old enemy that was once thought beaten but is now back with a vengeance and stalking the wards of the most modern hospitals. What's allowed it back in, ironically, is the very success at saving lives that has made modern medicine such a triumph.

Sarah's life-and-death struggle would have been familiar to a Victorian surgeon in a military hospital or a maternity ward.

Back then, women in childbirth and soldiers with infected wounds died in their millions from 'blood poisoning' — what we now call severe sepsis or septic shock — their vital organs destroyed from within."

And here's the main point:

"The cause is a new wave of infections called community-acquired MRSA — a form of MRSA found, as the name suggests, not in hospitals but in the general population.

It can enter the body through a cut or wound — any kind of break in the skin. In the UK, at least a hundred such cases of community-acquired MRSA have been reported — most of them with a particularly toxic strain known as PVL which has killed at least one person."

See: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1774

Maybe Dontreadonme should put down his porn mag, turn off the porn video, pour the alcohol down the drain, and learn about sepsis.

Oh, and cutting out a person's tongue also opens a broad avenue for infectious disease to rear its ugly head, thereby risking sepsis. Would the both of you like to rethink your position in this respect? And cutting out a person's tongue results in a 100% chance of permanent physical injury and accompanying disability. Don't think that we can say that about waterboarding can we?

Are his reasons valid for voting against this bill?

I'd say that not wanting to tie the hands of CIA interrogators would be a valid response if it hadn't come from McCain who just a few months ago pretty much stated the opposite.

What are the political implications of this vote for a Presidential Candidate who has been outspoken regarding his views on techniques like waterboarding?

I think that he might get some points with the Republican conservative base and continued endorsement from President Bush - who says he will veto the bill. On the downside, he may lose some Democrats who might have otherwise voted for him over Clinton or Obama in the general election. I think this vote will come back to bite him and that the Democrats will take every opportunity of pointing out this contradiction.

This is a joke post, right KT? A whole post on sepsis in a thread about waterboarding? When you said And here's the main point..... I had expected you to at least attempt to tie sepsis/MRSA into the topic of torture.........I was mistaken.

Maybe KT should read the topic title, and the posts from those he quotes. At least I did say bamboo shoots under the fingernail could give you a nasty infection.

After flip-flopping o the subject of torture, at least McCain may finally be showing some consistancy. After all, the god given right of Americans to commit torture does dovetail nicely with his agreeance to maintaining a colonial presence in Iraq for the next 100 years.

"I was against the torture before I was against it."

Oh, John, where did your head go?

I'm now really worried that McCain will be labeled a hypocrite for this based purely on the superficial. Some [most] people know him to be outspoken against torture, yet here he is [on-the-surface] making overtures suggesting an approval and/or apathy? This isn't going to sit well with a lot of people come September-October.

there is a point where pain compliance becomes torture. at a certain point ^^^ see above ^^^ inflicting pain is very counter productive and the subject will tell you anything you want to hear to get out of the situation. that is not about good intel, that is about power, and that is sickening.

having experienced waterboarding myself I can tell you it is very unpleasant, but it is not the phsyical agony that any of the above mentioned things are, many of which have been used against our people.

the point is this, certain high value target are highly motivated to deny us information, if they are willing to die to keep that information secret there is little you can do. but if they are the narcisistic variety and value their own lives above the cause they fight for then making them think we will kill them may help us get the info we need.

for our current opponent, humiliation and other cultural pressures are more effective than pain compliance.

You seem to want to have it both ways. You say it's not all that bad because of your anecdotal evidence, but it's severe enough to make someone tell you anything you want to hear. I just don't see how that is possible.

If we're going to use anecdotal evidence, I would suggest I'd choose the excruciating pain of the examples I provided over the feeling that I was going to die by drowning. Personally speaking, I have nightmares to this day about the fear of drowning. With pain, I can look forward to the minutes following the brutality. With drowning, I would think I would be dead.

Someone could die as a result of waterboarding. But in most cases they don't. Someone could get an infection and die in the examples I provided, but most of the time, they don't. Allowing waterboarding as torture is an arbitrary level of torture to make yourself feel better - plain and simple.

Terrorists kill innocents because they beleive they are right and it helpful to their cause. Culturally, we can't fathom that thought process. But when we torture for our cultural beliefs, we are no different then the terrorists.

Actually, BoF, I did look for it, and couldn't find it. I then came here and asked here if anyone knew since I couldn't find it. So, do you know what the bill number is?

I haven't looked for the bill number and ...

Sorry scubatim, but I don't do other people's homework.

I will, however, give you a hint. Googling things is often cumbersome and searches may have to be refined over and over again without the require results.

In this case there is an easier way. Call the offices of either of your Senators (since this was a senate version) and their staffs should be able to give you that information.

Edited to add informationin green above.

Are his reasons valid for voting against this bill?

I think there's a very clear reason he did this, and it's a first step towards mollifying the extremities of his party who have attacked him.


What are the political implications of this vote for a Presidential Candidate who has been outspoken regarding his views on techniques like waterboarding?

This, as others have pointed out, is going to make him a huge target for being branded a "flip-flopper" and it's going to cost him a lot of his moderate vote. He doesn't have a Nader running up the right side, and it seems extremely unlikely that he will before November. Many of us on the left (including people that would vote for him in a hypothetical Hillary v. McCain election), admired him greatly for his strong stance on this and not backing down in the face of the administration.

There is no discernible difference between the CIA and the military as to the torture standards they should be held to in my mind. I will be interested to hear the protracted explanations from McCain himself as to why there is a difference.

Here is a link to the actual bill:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2007_rpt/hrpt110-478.html

Here is an ABC Blog story on the Flip-Flop that gathers a few different articles of note:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/20...ccain-flip.html

(I found it with Google, Scuba, by typing in "McCain" )

Simple answer--our moral code is correct, and theirs is not. When you slip into cultural relativism, you end up with nothing but "I'm okay, you're okay" and some warped sense of equity, which is the point you have reached.

We have signed the Geneva Accords; to my knowledge, we have abided by them for the most part. Illegal enemy combatants DO NOT get, legally, and are not entitled to, morally, anything other than death. Where we have made errors, we have punished our own, like in abu Grahib.

Have you heard any kind of remorse from the Islamic thugs about the beheadings, the capture and torture of innocent civilians like reporters and office workers, their failure to honor Geneva accords as to our uniformed soldiers, the use of retarded women as bomb carriers, and the like? Have their been any Islamic "trials", either real or in abstentia, of any of their people, like we have done with ours? With all the mistakes we have made in this war, there is simply no way I can equate their behavior with ours, or their "moral" code (and I use that term loosely) with ours.

This war is going well for us now because the Iraqis on the ground are cooperating with us and our "surge"--even they can tell, despite the cultural divide, that we are much more humane then their terrorist cousins.

And, if we win this stinking war, we can make sure our moral code prevails....

Here we have two moral theories in conflict. Theory "A" says: torture is wrong for everyone. Theory "B" says: what we do is right (and what others do needs to be viewed through this lens). Theory "A" has no moral relativism while Theory "B" may involve moral relativism. In this case, quick, you seem to be advocating Theory "B" which is a type of deontological moral theory. Deontological moral theories are relative to whatever "duty" you've chosen to follow. For example, the Japanese kamikaze pilot was "morally correct" to crash his plane into US naval vessels. Why? Because his "moral duty" was to the State and the Japanese military code of conduct -- suicide was justified. Similarly, a terrorist crashing an aircraft into an office building is "morally correct" to do so as there is a "moral duty" to follow. Torture can be justified through this lens as well.

The problem with "deontological morality" is that everyone can justify their behaviors (and even atrocities) within this system of morality. Note that usually deontological morality involves a duty to the state so it's really not everyone but everyone within a state. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a direct reaction to the rise of fascism. Fascism cannot work without some type of deontological moral theory backing it.