Quote:
Originally Posted by Serenoa
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is bucking much of his party and coming to the defense of a Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s controversial interrogation tactics.
“It’s a thorough study of practices that I believe not only failed their purpose to secure actionable intelligence... but actually damaged our security interests as well as our reputation as a force for good in the world,” McCain said in a speech on the Senate floor shortly after the report was released.
“I believe the American people have a right — indeed, a responsibility — to know what was done in their name, how these practices did or did not serve their interests and how they comported our most important values,” he said.
McCain, who was kept as a prisoner of war for five years during the Vietnam War, has been one of the most vocal critics of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods used during former President George W. Bush’s administration.
McCain comes to defense of CIA critics
So.....could any of you who are here defending Bush & Cheney, torture (enhanced interrogation or whatever you prefer to call it) & the benefits of it that you claim look Sen. McCain in the eye & tell him he's wrong? I really doubt it. |
I answered your question in a separate post. Now let me ask you one, if it would save the lives of your children by preventing a terrorist attack which would result in their deaths, would or would you not resort to the tactics used by the CIA? A yes or no answer, with an explanation if you would like, would help me understand your reasoning.
Remember that, like it or not and despite the Senate Report, torture (assume, for the sake of argument, that what the CIA did was torture) is very successful in extracting information from recalcitrant people. That is why torture has been used for thousands of years for that purpose. For the Senate Democrats to say otherwise is either naive or a lie. For the CIA's view of the success of their methods:
Hayden slams Senate report, claims CIA interrogations yielded 'Home Depot'-sized trove of intel | Fox News
Also remember that before we captured the subject terrorists, we were trying to kill them in any way we could--shooting, slitting their throats, drone attacks, bombs, you name it. Is killing these guys in cold blood somehow less objectionable than waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and more gruesome but not fatal techniques? War is hell, but what we have now is worse than war because, in modern warfare, even the bad guys follow some basic rules. The psychopaths that we are up against now do not.