This is how republican politicians make nice to their torture loving base. The New York Times reports:
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said President Bush should veto a measure that would bar the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects.
McCain voted against the bill, which would restrict the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation techniques listed in the Army field manual.
His vote was controversial because the manual prohibits waterboarding — a simulated drowning technique that McCain also opposes — yet McCain doesn’t want the CIA bound by the manual and its prohibitions.
Hmmm. McCain voted against a measure– an inadequate measure imo because among the 19 permitted “techniques” are some that amount to torture– that would forbid any “innovations” not in the 19 listed techniques. These “innovations” include waterboarding. And how does McTorture explain the brilliant logic of that?
‘I knew I would be criticized for it,” McCain told reporters Wednesday in Ohio. ”I think I can show my record is clear. I said there should be additional techniques allowed to other agencies of government as long as they were not” torture.
”I was on the record as saying that they could use additional techniques as long as they were not cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment,” McCain said. ”So the vote was in keeping with my clear record of saying that they could have additional techniques, but those techniques could not violate international rules against torture.”
What, pray tell, are the magical, non-torture “additional techniques” beyond the 19 in the manual and waterboarding? F*ck if I know. Do you know? Does anybody? Are there such things? You know what? It doesn’t matter because this vote isn’t about the content of the bill. No, it’s about rallying the Torquemadas around this candidate’s willingness to torture.
McTorture wants all of the little torture happy rethuglicans in the base to know that he’s the true successor to Flyboy McCodpiece and that he, too, will use “other techniques” (we cannot tell you what they are because that would give it away). And just as W says that waterboarding isn’t torture, so too the undisclosed additional techniques aren’t torture, also. And how do we know that? Because the US doesn’t torture. Did he tell us that already?
What slime.
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What has happened to my country that McTorture thinks that there’s a political advantage of advocating for torture? Are we that frightened? Have we so thoroughly lost our way?
Thanks for reading.
out anyway, always has. I am always blown away by our winger revised history. War hero my ass. Viet Nam was a criminal war as this one is. We killed and tortured villages full of babies and women, people who had been through decades of brutal colonization, with us their latest oppressor. As a victim of torture he sure relishes the war and killing. In his speech last night he was smiling as he ripped through his nasty tirade of evil regimes part 2. Sorry to go off but it’s sickening to watch this despicable human paraded around as a hero and a leader.
… that McCain is utterly cynical when it comes to what he’ll say on the campaign trail. He will say virtually anything to pander at this point.
Trouble is, his pandering allows those folks both in power and just plain citizens, to feel good about their own approval of torture.
There are consequences to that kind of cynicism, imo.
we are supposed to be.
What slime indeed.
a large protion of the people in this country are willing to look the other way or approve of torture if they believe it will make them more “secure”……………..