McCain pushes back against Cheney, says torture violated law

[Zona]

Sen. John McCain disagrees with former Vice President Dick Cheney’s claim that enhanced interrogation techniques helped keep the country safe.

“I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan,” McCain told CBS’ Bob Schieffer Sunday.


“I think these interrogations, once publicized, helped al Qaeda recruit."

Raw Story » McCain pushes back against Cheney, says torture violated law

 

[rightwinger]

OH oh...

Watch for Boss Limbaugh to throw McCain out of the party on Monday

 

[Zona]

Question, who do you agree with...Cheney or Mccain. Just throwing it out there to you all.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Al Qaeda has trouble getting together a foursome for tennis or golf because as soon as more than three of them meet they get blowed up.

John McCain is talking out his ass, just like when he was throwing the election to Obama

 

[rightwinger]

John McCain is talking out his ass, just like when he was throwing the election to Obama

Hell yea! What does McCain know about torture anyway???

 

[jillian]

John McCain is talking out his ass, just like when he was throwing the election to Obama

Hell yea! What does McCain know about torture anyway???

lol....

the extremists always hated that McCain didn't toe the party line on this issue.

 

[Zona]

John McCain is talking out his ass, just like when he was throwing the election to Obama

Hell yea! What does McCain know about torture anyway???

lol....

the extremists always hated that McCain didn't toe the party line on this issue.

John McCain is talking out his ass, just like when he was throwing the election to Obama

Hell yea! What does McCain know about torture anyway???

Cheney knows more about it...he went to viet nam 5 times! ....of uh well, Cheney did something with Viet nam five times, if memory serves.

 

[JakeStarkey]

This McCain we need in the party. The Palins we don't. The Limbaughs we don't. The whackos we don't. Go start your own party, and blow that one up, like you blew this one up. Real Americans hate you.

 

[jillian]

Cheney know more about it...he went to viet nam 5 times! ....well, Cheney did something with Viet nam five times, if memory serves.

lol...yep... those five deferrals make him a real expert ....

in being a chickenhawk...

 

[Avatar4321]

I find this is a complete mischaracterization of the arguments.

Cheney isnt arguing that torture is lawful. He is arguing that waterboarding and whatever other interrogation techniques used werent torture.

Whether you agree with him or not, you can't have an honest discussion unless you are honest about what is being argued.

 

[rightwinger]

Dick Cheney..

Its much easier to support torture when you are the one dishing it out rather than the one receiving it

 

[Zona]

I find this is a complete mischaracterization of the arguments.

Cheney isnt arguing that torture is lawful. He is arguing that waterboarding and whatever other interrogation techniques used werent torture.

Whether you agree with him or not, you can't have an honest discussion unless you are honest about what is being argued.

What link did YOU read?

 

[veritas]

I find this is a complete mischaracterization of the arguments.

Cheney isnt arguing that torture is lawful. He is arguing that waterboarding and whatever other interrogation techniques used werent torture.

Whether you agree with him or not, you can't have an honest discussion unless you are honest about what is being argued.

Same fucking thing. Cheney is a liar and Scooterkins didn't his pardon. Personally, I think the two of them and Yu should be kept in a subterranean supermax located on the South Pole.

And waterboarding is torture and other various EITs are too.

 

[rightwinger]

Anyone want to ask Sean Hannity if waterboarding is torture???

 

[elvis]

Anyone want to ask Sean Hannity if waterboarding is torture???

Fuck Sean Hannity.

 

[Avatar4321]

The previous posts are perfect example of why honest discussion is downright impossible. There is at least one side that refuses to honestly characterize the arguments of the other. You can't honestly discuss and address and opponents argument until you are willing to honestly acknowledge what that argument is rather than slip your conclusions into it.

 

[Zona]

Anyone want to ask Sean Hannity if waterboarding is torture???

Fuck Sean Hannity.

Outstanding post.

 

[Zona]

The previous posts are perfect example of why honest discussion is downright impossible. There is at least one side that refuses to honestly characterize the arguments of the other. You can't honestly discuss and address and opponents argument until you are willing to honestly acknowledge what that argument is rather than slip your conclusions into it.

What is the difference between what McCain and Cheney are saying? There is a huge differnce but you dont see it? What link are you reading?

 

[veritas]

The previous posts are perfect example of why honest discussion is downright impossible. There is at least one side that refuses to honestly characterize the arguments of the other. You can't honestly discuss and address and opponents argument until you are willing to honestly acknowledge what that argument is rather than slip your conclusions into it.

What is the difference between what McCain and Cheney are saying? There is a huge differnce but you dont see it? What link are you reading?

The dishonest characterizations are coming from Cheney who had his lawyers parse their way out of torture. But it's still torture. So deal with it, it's illegal.

 

[DamnYankee]

Sen. John McCain disagrees with former Vice President Dick Cheney’s claim that enhanced interrogation techniques helped keep the country safe.

“I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan,” McCain told CBS’ Bob Schieffer Sunday.


“I think these interrogations, once publicized, helped al Qaeda recruit."

Raw Story » McCain pushes back against Cheney, says torture violated law

AS a candidate who relies on his carefully cultivated image as a straight-talking, maverick, John McCain has few issues as symbolically important as torture. No Republican has been as outspoken an opponent of prisoner mistreatment and abuse as McCain, and his own painful experience as a prisoner during the Vietnam War has granted him a unique moral authority on the issue.

(snipped)

To understand the complexities of McCain's position, it is first important to understand the legal game of hide and seek that the torture debate has become. Long before Bush Administration legal memoranda made techniques like waterboarding permissible for CIA detainees, many in Congress and the legal community assumed such methods were illegal under international agreements and U.S. criminal law. "There really wasn't any ambiguity in terms of waterboarding," explains Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School.

But since September 11, 2001, the legal waters have been muddied by repeated attempts by the Bush Administration to further define the meaning of the law. According to statements by CIA director Michael Hayden, three detainees in U.S. custody have been waterboarded. To permit these and other techniques, the White House and the Justice Department developed new definitions for terms like "torture" and "detainee" and expanded theories about the power of the President to override congressional oversight in time of war. A 2003 memo by John Yoo, a former Justice Department official, which was declassified last week, went so far as to discuss the potential of the President to approve the maiming, drugging or applying "scalding water, corrosive acid or caustic substance" on detainees.

In the spring of 2005, McCain began the process of formulating legislation to prevent a use of such extreme techniques and some of the sanctioned abuses at Abu Ghraib. Initially, McCain's staff proposed and circulated a bill remarkably similar to the Democratic language McCain now opposes. In a draft proposal, dated May 17, 2005, and obtained by TIME, McCain's staff specifically outlined a plan to make the Army Field Manual "the basis for a uniform standard adhered to by all elements of the United States Government." Another section said that no person under U.S. control could be treated or interrogated with techniques "not authorized by or listed in" the manual. But in the end, after consultation with fellow Senators and others, McCain and his staff did not adopt this draft language.

"It is standard operating procedure to go through numerous drafts before a bill is actually ready for introduction," said Brian Rogers, a McCain campaign spokesman, who added that he had no knowledge of the draft version of the bill.

When McCain publicly introduced his bill, which was later called the Detainee Treatment Act, he had narrowed the scope to require the field manual's use only for the military interrogations or interrogations on military property. But the McCain proposal did also make clear all U.S. Government agencies were banned from employing "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of prisoners, as described by the U.S. Constitution and an international convention against torture, for which the United States is a signatory. A year later, McCain supported another bill, called the Military Commissions Act, which again made it a clear criminal act to employ "cruel or inhuman" treatment, as described by the Geneva Conventions.

"Cruel and inhuman treatment is defined as an act intended to inflict severe or serious physical pain or suffering," McCain explained on the Senate floor, during this second effort. "Such mental suffering need not be prolonged to be prohibited. The mental suffering need only be more than transitory." McCain has said he was assured by government officials that one of the most extreme techniques, waterboarding, was illegal under these laws.

The problem with all of these measures was that they continued to depend on interpretation by Bush Administration lawyers, who continue to be both secretive and evasive of congressional intent. As recently as February 6, the day after the Super Tuesday primary, a White House spokesman refused to rule out the future use of waterboarding as a technique for high-value detainees. The Attorney General has also declined to say that the technique, or other extreme techniques, are outlawed. On March 8, Bush vetoed the latest congressional attempt to force the CIA to adhere to the Army Field Manual, a rule book that prescribes mostly psychological methods of interrogation, and clearly prohibits the use of forced nudity, waterboarding, hooding and the use of military dogs. Congressional Democratic leaders have not yet announced if they plan to bring up the issue again, but they are unlikely to muster enough votes to override the veto.

Though McCain supports the President's position on the veto, he has spent the better part of a year on the campaign trail speaking out against waterboarding and other extreme interrogation methods as forms of illegal torture. In recent weeks, as it became clear that he would win the Republican nomination, his direct criticism of the Bush Administration has softened. "It is unfortunate," he said on the Senate floor on February 13, of the Bush Administration's refusal to call waterboarding illegal. "It would be far better, I believe, for the Administration to state forthrightly what is clear in current law."

His words, however, have had no effect. To this day, the Bush Administration continues to ignore McCain's advice.

Has McCain Flip-Flopped on Torture? - TIME


So has anything changed, or not?