I'm no fan of John McCain yet occasionally he gets it almost right
In a WaPo Opinion today:
He gets this part right
Much of this debate is a definitional one: whether any or all of these methods constitute torture. I believe some of them do, especially waterboarding, which is a mock execution and thus an exquisite form of torture. As such, they are prohibited by American laws and values, and I oppose them.
And this point very wrong [along with most of the politicians in DC]
I don’t believe anyone should be prosecuted for having used these techniques,
Just because you helped write the Military Commissions Act that removed prosecution for those that approved torture does not make it right.
Well going against the Cheneys of this world, and most of the screaming cowards on the right wing for that matter he writes:
I asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and he told me the following: The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti — the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden — as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured
McCain having personal experience of such vile treatment goes on to say:
Often, information provided to stop the torture is deliberately misleading.
He also points out the obvious
Mistreatment of enemy prisoners endangers our own troops, who might someday be held captive.
I agree with this point he makes near the end
This is a moral debate. It is about who we are.
Yes John it is an argument that we on the left have been using since day one, however when we refuse to prosecute crimes we then lose ourselves.
At least we agree on the central point "torture is heinously wrong" and that in itself is unusual as your colleagues on the right seem to have lost their basic sense of what is right and what is wrong.
I appreciate the truth, but sometimes we need to back up our sense of what is right by prosecuting those that broke the law.
Sorry John close but not quite right.
Until we get everything out in the open we are not
different, stronger and better than those who would destroy us.