You want torture? Watch this sober.
***
Grandpa Simpson is apparently relieved that the election is over so he can sow his mavericky oats once again, and hopefully recover his base. The media:
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. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed’s real name, his whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda.
In fact, the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on Khalid Sheik Mohammed produced false and misleading information. He specifically told his interrogators that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, got married and ceased his role as an al-Qaeda facilitator — none of which was true. According to the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, the best intelligence gained from a CIA detainee — information describing Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti’s real role in al-Qaeda and his true relationship to bin Laden — was obtained through standard, noncoercive means.
I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence but often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear — true or false — if he believes it will relieve his suffering. Often, information provided to stop the torture is deliberately misleading.
Look, that’s great and everything that you are writing op-eds in the WaPo, but some of us remember that every single time it mattered, you were no where to be found:
Today the Senate voted 51-45 to adopt the Conference Committee’s intelligence authorization bill. Included in that bill is section 327, a Feinstein Amendment that would require all agencies of the U.S. government, not simply the military — to limit interrogation techniques to those identified in Army Field Manual 2-22.3. Section 327 reads as follows:
SEC. 327. LIMITATION ON INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES.
(a) LIMITATION.—No individual in the custody or under the effective control of an element of the intelligence community or instrumentality thereof, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations.
(b) INSTRUMENTALITY DEFINED.—In this section, the term ‘‘instrumentality’’, with respect to an element of the intelligence community, means a contractor or subcontractor at any tier of the element of the intelligence community.Only five Republicans voted for the bill–Senators Collins, Hagel, Lugar, Smith and Snowe.
Conspicuously absent from this list is, of course, Senator and Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who has bravely led several previous legislative efforts to prohibit torture. Senator McCain has issued an explanation for his vote, reprinted below. According to the Director of the FBI and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency [see this video at 1:30-1:32], the Army Field Manual techniques are sufficient for both the military and the FBI to successfully interrogate detainees, including those who might have critical information that might prevent imminent harm to U.S. persons. But apparently Senator McCain has concluded that such techniques are not enough for the CIA.
McCain “bravely led” on the issue of torture by repeatedly pointing out he was tortured in Viet Nam every single time he stepped in front of a camera. Then, when he had the chance to vote against it, to actually do something and to vote his beliefs, he declined. It has been that way on everything with the man- talk loudly, but forget to carry your stick. He flipped on virtually every “belief” he had in the last election, as well. But now that a President has firmly banned torture, McCain is out and about, getting himself some press time, reminding everyone that torture is bad and oh, by the way, did you know he was a victim of torture?
Maverick!
I wish one of those stooges in the press would ask McCain if we should prosecute those who torture. And if so, when McCain plans to make sure that happens. Yeah. Whatever.
stuckinred
I don’t know that he actually “served in South Vietnam”. Flew off carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin and sat in a cell in North Vietnam.
BGinCHI
If torture produces terrorists, then this makes total sense.
Amanda in the South Bay
I agree, McCain is a first rate douchefuck, but there’s certainly an element of tragedy. After all, he does have first hand experience of torture, but apparently his slimy political beliefs have overrode whatever lessons he learned from Vietnam.
I mean, for just about anyone else who had been through the experience of torture, you think they’d have just voted for the damn bill.
stuckinred
@Amanda in the South Bay: Plenty of em. Most of the POW’s were officers, what do you expect?
R-Jud
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Slimy self-interest. I think he only “believes” whatever will keep him among the VIPs.
62across
A stooge from the press doesn’t even have to ask about prosecution. From his WaPo editorial:
I don’t believe anyone should be prosecuted for having used these techniques, and I agree that the administration should state definitively that they won’t be. I am one of the authors of the Military Commissions Act, and we wrote into the legislation that no one who used or approved the use of these interrogation techniques before its enactment should be prosecuted. I don’t think it is helpful or wise to revisit that policy.
Tool!
Bubblegum Tate
Not to derail this thread, but have we already talked about these hilariously stupid videos that Huckabee is pushing?
MattF
Look, I give thanks to Allah five times a day that McCain was not elected President. I don’t admire his background, his history, or his wives, I am under no illusions about his temperament. But when all the would-be Republican candidates for president are in a wild rush to beshit themselves, and McCain says he’d rather not… I’m for it.
slag
Hey-If McCain had any credibility left whatsoever, I’d still take him as an ally on this issue. But alas. He is useless to us now. No country for old con men.
BGinCHI
@slag: His administration would doubtless have led us to a Blood Meridian of economic and social failure.
Omnes Omnibus
@stuckinred: Most were Navy and Air Force IIRC.
Back on topic: At this point, I no longer expect anything approaching decency or usefulness from the old bastard.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
i get what you are saying j.cole, but if mccain can send a piss-shiver through the right as they try to gloss bush era war on terror tactics, while diminishing the efforts since then, by obama, i don’t mind.
Joe Beese
Ah, that video takes me back…
The GOS roiled with delight at how leprous McCain looked against that green background, laughing at his creepy attempts to smile and confidently predicting electoral doom for any candidate so patently media-unsavvy.
Good times.
pragmatism
this is good news for john mccain.
lamh34
OT, but ughh, watching Tweety, and they were discussing Newt G, and Tweety, josh marshall and the mother jones dudes are rightly saying that Gingrich profits in racist language, and this witch from Politico takes umbrage, and wants to “push back” against the charge that Newt is a racists, and she’s “known Newt for a long time…” and she needs “more evidence” other than the clips Tweety showed Newt doing exactly what she claimed to need evidence of. Ughhh, as if I needed another reason to ignore Politico. I just could watch the bish anymore. I had to change the channel to Oprah!
Can't Be Bothered
McCain’s an asshole, but I truly appreciate him writing this piece. And that’s all I have to say about thaaat.
Jim C.
According to Talking Points Memo, McCain has said that he does not believe anyone who tortured should be prosecuted.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/mccain-denounces-torture-the-very-idea-of-america-is-at-stake-here-video.php?ref=fpb
ChrisS
@BGinCHI: We’re going to get that anyway …
stuckinred
@Omnes Omnibus: Damn! I was hoping you weren’t around :). Yea, I mean there were certainly doggies and jarheads but the bulk were flyers and, therefore, af or squids.
slag
@BGinCHI: Maybe. I could never read that book. Personally, I tend to favor a more banal dystopian vision along the lines of Mad Max.
Bob Loblaw
I already know the answer to this, but would you take the same approach to the inevitable day when Barack Obama finally drops his pretend aversion to marriage equality? Or, I don’t know, some component of the war on drugs?
There really isn’t a bad time to speak out against torture. If John McCain is ready to stand against the likes of Dick Cheney again, I’m not going to try and cut his knees out from under him because I’m still bitter about an election that he didn’t win.
Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Off topic, but there haven’t been any open threads for a while. Anyway, Chris Matthews is talking about tax policy and oil companies, and he has 2 Finance Committee members on, and they’re both Democrats! What the hell? How can that be? Where are the Republican shill senators? Doesn’t Matthews know that David Broder is weeping in Heaven at the lack of bipartisan journalistic evenhandedness?
Stillwater
McCain is like that stopped clock being right twice a day. But he’s right in this instance when he says that torture produces useful information about as reliably or consistently as a stopped clock. Or himself, for that matter.
Citizen_X
@stuckinred: “Flew off carriers,” why yes he did, but landing those planes? That was a bit more of a problem for Grumpy.
WaterGirl
@Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): Am I the only one who thinks the press (belatedly) may have taken in some of what Obama had to say when he called out the press last week, and realized they resembled those remarks?
Shoemaker-Levy 9
Now I’m getting that half-naked country girl selling solar cells at the top and a plus-size model selling bras to the side. You know, maybe the Obots have a point; Kos, FDL, and Greenwald don’t give me photos of women in lingerie like this place does.
Just Some Fuckhead
I bet I could change John McCain’s mind with torture of an upcoming election.
Maude
@WaterGirl:
Nah, heard Dancing Dave say Newt is a man of ideas. Nothing has changed.
WIIIAI
McCain in WaPo today: “I don’t believe anyone should be prosecuted for having used these techniques, and I agree that the administration should state definitively that they won’t be.”
Omnes Omnibus
@stuckinred: Yeah yeah yeah.
Gus
@slag: With us he has no credibility. With the beltway douchebags, he’s still an icon. For that reason alone, I’ll give him some props for this.
A Farmer
I imagine somebody already pointed this out, but the crazifaction factor finds another poll:
How does it always come to that?
Gus
@lamh34: Every 6 months or so, I go over to Politico’s sight just to remind myself what a fucking waste of pixels it is.
WaterGirl
@Maude: A girl can hope, anyway. And maybe it’s a good sign that I don’t know who Dancing Dave is? I gave up on watching the news on TV.
dmsilev
@Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
I think you have Broder’s location incorrect. He’s got to be either in Purgatory or perhaps Limbo. After all, it wouldn’t do to take sides between Heaven and Hell.
WereBear
What the hell is he risking, at this point? He’s always talked a far better game than he actually plays.
I have no respect for him at all.
And speaking of torture, this is a man who let someone at the convention go on and on about his own torture session; in front of his elderly mother.
Sick. Cubed.
Maude
@WaterGirl:
Sorry, David Gregory. Heard him for 30 seconds on rightie radio.
We have to wait for a few weeks to see if there is any change in how the press covers events.
AP went after the oil company tax breaks today, explaining how they get over 4 billion worth of breaks. I don’t watch tv and am a lot calmer than when I did.
Edit: Deer Maude, plz lern to spel.
Stefan
I don’t believe anyone should be prosecuted for having used these techniques, and I agree that the administration should state definitively that they won’t be. I am one of the authors of the Military Commissions Act, and we wrote into the legislation that no one who used or approved the use of these interrogation techniques before its enactment should be prosecuted. I don’t think it is helpful or wise to revisit that policy.
Look, argue with this all you want, but this is the same approach we used after WWII with German and Japanese prisoners who were accused of using aggressive interrogation methods against their detainees. We agreed that while it was regrettable, it would have been unhelpful and unwise to prosecute them for acts that were, after all, both legal under the Nazi and Japanese Imperial regimes and that were done in the defense of their countries against foreign enemies, and it was better to look forward rather than backwa…wait, what?
slag
@Gus:
Really? Is this true? I swear, between McCain and Breitbart, I can’t help but think that credulity has become a four-letter word for our press corps. Or maybe they’re just blinded by the white hair.
Powdered wigs all around!
Warren Terra
I dunno. On torture legislation, McCain was, if anything, worse than you say. He milked his anti-torture stance for a month or so before the media, made himself the key figure in legislative opposition to torture – and then he sold the anti-torture side down the river, under the table. Because he had become the symbol of the legislative anti-torture faction, the “compromise” he independently announced automatically became the best they could hope for. Needless to say, it did nothing to block torture.
On the other hand, this isn’t about legislation right now; it’s about public perception. And if he’s going to make news saying that torture wasn’t useful, I’m not going to spurn the message just because the messenger is a POS. Unlike the legislative effort of 2006, there’s little he could realistically do to betray the forces of reason on this issue in the absence of actual legislation being crafted. And maybe people will listen to him, for better or for worse.
Besides, in these days we should take whatever small sanity we can get. Boehner is demanding huge regressive spending cuts, and no tax loophole closures, to keep the government running, and his stockinged, tricorner cap wearing Teabagger masters are declaring that even to vote to raise the debt ceiling under those circumstances would be unforgiveable. If an asshole hypocrite denounces torture then I’ll take it, even knowing he’ll knife me in the back on this very issue if he thinks it’ll help him in any way.
Stefan
I don’t believe anyone should be prosecuted for having used these techniques, and I agree that the administration should state definitively that they won’t be.
Because nothing will deter sociopaths from not torturing helpless prisoners in the future like a definitive statement from the Administration that they won’t be prosecuted for their sick, perverted crimes.
Accountability: it’s not what’s for dinner.
piratedan
@Shoemaker-Levy 9: hey, I just signed on for the solar water heater (and the vent closure thingy) and almost plunged for the whole schmear to get the panels up. Still having to wrangle that credit report thingy to its knees tho to figure out what’s what because what the card says and who owns the card sometimes are very different entities
numbskull
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: Totally agree.
Cole, when you’re given a gift (like Mr. Sunday Morning saying you’re right and all those pig-fucking torture fetishists are wrong), you accept it graciously and move on.
Even if you know God wants him to DIAF.
Can't Be Bothered
@Stefan:
Deterrence is far and away the most overused and least efficacious theory of criminal punishment. Just stick to morality.
slag
@Gus: Today’s “Barack Obama” Google News Alert: first link is to–no surprise–Politico. But for a story about Mitt Romney?! The rest: MarketWatch, Hot Air, WaPo, WaPo, WaPo, Idolator: All About the Music, WaPo…
Zombie interwebs.
numbskull
@A Farmer: I am convinced that we’re being taught something about ongoing evolution (which, of course, is always ongoing).
Preventing procreation of the 27% is critical to the survival of our species and the planet. The data have led me to this conclusion.
Stefan
Deterrence is far and away the most overused and least efficacious theory of criminal punishment. Just stick to morality.
It’s not just deterrence — punishing people for crimes, arresting, convicting and imprisoning them, is how we as a society signal that these are crimes, that they shouldn’t be done, and that there’s a cost to your freedom if you do.
We punish people for rape, murder, kidnapping, etc., we don’t merely say “hey, let’s just agree these acts are immoral and move on.” Why is torture any different?
Stefan
Seriously, if at some point some people don’t go to jail for the rest of their lives for this shit, then I can 100% guarantee you that future administrations will continue to torture, and that the use of torture will spread throughout our society.
The Other Chuck
I take it “Just Another Sad Old Man, All Alone, Dying of Cancer” would have been impolitic as a headline?
The Other Chuck
@Warren Terra:
So basically exactly what he did with the POW hearings. He’s always been scum.
Jay B.
Well, in this case I think it’s absolutely essential that we know the truth. If it is how McCain says, it’s positively necessary that he writes this Op-Ed.
Torture is a blight on this country. It should be beyond the pale. It is not. Since the Administration can’t seem to pierce the bubble about the intel coming from “standard, noncoercive means”, I don’t give a shit where the confirmation comes from.
He sold his soul and ran from the torture fight to run for President. Sad. But at least as a narrative technique, I’m OK with a narrative of redemption. Cynical as it may be, he’s right. Right now that’s OK with me.
Or are you worried about him running again?
kdaug
@The Other Chuck: Ah, and there’s the rub – he is an old man. He will die soon.
Have you looked at the current crop of AZ republicans?
WaterGirl
@Maude: First you made me cringe, when you mentioned David Gregory. What is wrong with me that I thought he was good?!? The only thing I can say for myself is that I was disabused of that notion the first day i saw him in the white house press corp.
Then you made me laugh with your edit!
slag
@WaterGirl: Here’s Dancin Dave with MC Rove. Cringes aplenty.
WaterGirl
@slag: Um, thank you? :-) I had seen that before but apparently had blocked it out. Now i get the ‘dancin dave’ reference. Now if you’ll excuse me, i have to go google ‘let the eagle’s soar’ so I can relive that, too. Good times. (not really)
WereBear
Geez, people, it doesn’t matter what he says now; it never matters!
If he needs to say something different next week, he will, and no one in the press corp will utter a peep.
It is utterly meaningless.
celticdragonchick
@MattF:
I agree.
Jay B.
@WereBear:
OK, so what’s the angle he’s playing here? What does he gain by writing this? Torture is popular. It’s popular among the journalistic types too. It’s good copy. The Maverick ship has long since sailed. Christ, he’s almost 100.
What he’s doing here, in a way that nearly no one else is doing, is telling, hopefully, a truth, that stands to gain him nothing.
Hal
@Jay B
This is how McCain works. It’s how he’s always worked. He got busted with Keeting, and suddenly he’s the reform candidate. He runs as an anti-dote to GOP craziness, but when that doesn’t work, he joins right in, right up to throwing Sarah Palin, a person I can’t believe McCain has ever truly believed was competent, into the mix in order to at least have a slight chance at his dream of being President.
The man is amazingly insincere and supremely unprincipled, but yet every time he changes his position, people feel the need to give him far more credit than he deserves.
So what’s his angle? Most likely he doesn’t want to go down in history as a soul sucked leech who would do anything to be elected.
I always remember what John Stewart said months ago, that McCain went from being a Maverick to someone who’s greatest ambition is to die in office.
WereBear
Because he suffered, don’t you know; we all can’t believe it does not somehow make a difference.
But it doesn’t. It’s cruelty for no purpose; the tragedy is that he should know and yet he does not.
Tsulagi
Yeah, McCain pretty much sold his soul for the R-nomination and dream of being president. That sucker has flip flopped on torture more than a tuna landing on a hot boat deck. To be fair, his flips and flops trying to win hearts and minds of real American teabaggers haven’t been limited to torture.
Before his Detainee Treatment Act amendment passed in 2005 limiting military interrogation techniques to those in the Army Field Manual on Interrogation and prohibiting all other agencies from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, Cheney asked him to carve out an exception for CIA and civilian contractors. McCain said no. Amendment passed and became law of the land.
But of course the obvious end run for the honor and integrity admin was to have Rummy’s Pentagon rewrite the manual. Rummy’s people didn’t rewrite but added some revisions that were classified. Revisions purportedly containing waterboarding and more as good to go.
Army, though, later rewrote the manual replacing 34-52 with FM 2-22.3, the current one. None of it classified, and specifically prohibiting waterboarding and other techniques. Army knows torture doesn’t work. They also have this weird thought/desire of not giving an enemy a reason and justification to torture our guys if captured/detained. Gutsy move by Army during the Bush admin, but then Gates became SecDef so that definitely helped.
Two years after saying no to Cheney, when the Feinstein amendment came up limiting all agencies to the field manual, now R-nominee McCain pandering to his Purple Heart bandaid retard brigades base flipped and flopped agin it. Mavericky. Of course the honor and integrity Dick ‘n Bush duo who always listened to their generals did what would be expected: Bush issued an executive order giving CIA and contractors an exception. President Obama later revoked that order.
Fuck McCain.
Mnemosyne
@Jay B.:
As Stefan and others have picked up on, I think the angle is, “Sure, torture is bad, but can’t we let bygones be bygones?”
Makes me wonder if there’s some investigation rumbling under the surface.
Jay B.
@Mnemosyne:
That’s the official Administration position too. So?
I’m not saying McCain is courageous or a great man or anything, but sometimes simple sanity is refreshing. Torture is a stain on this Republic and people with a vested interest in its “success” have been lying their asses off trying to validate it. McCain has laid down a simple marker.
Who else has? DiFi? That was early on and then reports started getting muddled.
Danny
Yeah he p*ssyfooted in 2008. Or, he’s just another republican politician that will take the convenient position on whatever. But today he was very useful to the country. The torture salesmen must meet pushback, and McCain is effective having the media channels, being republican, and having the POW backstory. I’m glad he took this stand now, and will gladly congratulate him today and rip him tomorrow.
WereBear
Oooooh, don’t get me all excited.
SoINeedAName
Yo, John –
Two things:
[1] Get your fucking facts straight:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bin-ladens-death-and-the-debate-over-torture/2011/05/11/AFd1mdsG_story.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/john-mccain-to-bush-apologists-stop-lying-about-bin-laden-and-torture/2011/03/03/AF10AnzG_blog.html
[2] Take it down a notch!
Its_a_given
@numbskull: This may explain the numbness in your skull, what with all of the facepalms and headesks.
Susan Kitchens
@62across:
I read the original at WaPo until I reached the section you quoted —
I stopped reading after that.
Thanks, John, for the reminder of where McCain wasn’t when it really mattered.
Country First, my eye.
Party of Responsibility, uh huh.
lester freamon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HofKSabeME
Jeffrey Toobin’s comments on that McCain speech linked above, squarely placing him in my tv political commentator hall of fame.
Jim, Once
@Tsulagi: Thank you for this. Best, most informed response here.
Mark
In McCain’s speech on the Senate floor today he
1. called out Mukasey, demanding he retract the lie that torture helped get Bin Laden
2. gave a specific example of how misinformation from torture found its way into Powell’s UN address
It doesn’t matter how tarnished the messenger is–it’s important someone on their side is saying it.
Jim, Once
@Mark:
Indeed. I cannot tell you how tired I am of my Republican relatives beating me over the head with the torture=bin Laden death fallacy. And I have no way of avoiding their daily company.
El Kabong
I think if McCain had made a stand against torture during the 2008 election, and had thrown it back in the faces of his fellow Republicans, it would have
1) given some substance to his reputation as a maverick
2) not been met with virulent opposition. After all, he has some authority on the subject.
3) been a constant reminder to voters that HE was the war hero
4) bought himself more votes.