McCain flip-flops on Torture and approves Waterboarding

You would think for a person that spent 5 1/2 years as a POW (three of which he spent in solitary confinement), being tortured with nonstop brutal beatings, refusal of medial attention and other technique; he would come to the conclusion that torture is probably a bad thing. If McCain was as strong a POW as he claims that all this torture did not break him, and he did not revile any secret information about his father or the war efforts, then you can conclude that torture doesn’t work from personal experience right?

Here’s his stance on this issue in June 2007 where he says “There’s no excuse for it”, “It’s not in keeping for what America is supposed to be”:


Today, the Senate brought the Intelligence Authorization Bill to the floor, which contained a provision from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) establishing one interrogation standard across the government. The bill requires the intelligence community to abide by the same standards as articulated in the Army Field Manual and bans waterboarding.

However today, McCain maintains that the Army Field manual needs to allow more latitude for torture techniques to acquire secrets from detainees. [NY Times article on Senate pass of Ban]

Maverick Fails The Test: McCain Votes Against Waterboarding Ban [Thinkprogress.org]

For someone who has been so strong against torture and then to flip on this for a political reason (to stand with his party on pro-torture) shows a sharp disregard for human rights as well as a big gash in his integrity to stand by what he personally believes in.

Politics before country, ethics, morals and what is right, is that right McCain? The double-talk express is picking up steam folks! Of course the torture worked against him in Vietnam, so maybe this is really why he’s changing his tune.

UPDATE (3.10.2008) – Ok so this weekend’s 60 Minutes has McCain on for an interview and within this he explicitly states that waterboarding is torture. Is this a case where his public policy is different than his political practice or just a casualty of the political process where politicians vote for bills with pieces that hold policy against their beliefs but sacrifice those for totality of the bill… either way both are wrong. Here’s his whole interview:

Is it experience, tenure or neither you need for Presidency?

What is experience? Much of the Hilll campaign against Obama is that he doesn’t have the experience and that her tenure in the big House is a big advantage to her credibility as the future president of the US (“I was in the White House for 8 years.” – HRC). Well yeah, and so has the Pastry Chef! (per Dick Morris, Political Strategist) Does that give the chef an equal opportunity to run for president? OR any more credibility for that matter to manage any major restaurant in the country? No it does not.

From what I understand, Hill was a private practice partner for a law firm in AR and then soon the first lady of Arkansas with Bill when he became Gov. Not the demure 1st Lady, she was unique in her role and soon became a mother with the birth of Chelsea. With the fall out of Bill from Gov, she went into the attack roll, sharpening her teeth with personal attacks against Bill’s opponents and helping him rise up again. By not baking cookies she did contribute to Bill becoming the 42nd President of the ISA. When she became First Lady, she campaigned for woman’s/human rights, woman abuse, expanding child care, breast cancer research, teen pregnancy prevention, and expanding child adoption rates. Her primary political experience came with her US Senatorship of NY after 2000. Sure she has a lot of friends, rubbing elbows with Bill’s cronies but do those “relationships” make her any more experienced at the job or even able to lead our country like you as a citizen want it to be?

On comparison of tenure and experience with GWB – and not to compare the two in any way – George W. Bush, only served six years as the Governor of Texas before his presidency. Of course we as American’s should have looked harder at his failures to understand how he was going to turn out: He was a C student (transcripts and he’s even quoted as saying: “For all you C students out there, it’s amazing what can happen to you if you keep working hard.”) and had numerous failed businesses.

Previous presidents have been governors, or had a longer terms in the Senate or House, before taking office, than Obama. Have all of these experiences prepare those presidents to operate within the system, or to actually do something about changing the system. Obama has 11 years experience in public office (Illinois State senate and US Senator) which is much more than Hillary’s 6 years as US Senator and being House Mom in the White House.

Obama services on the Foreign Relations committee in the US Senate and he is the Chair of the Subcommittee on European Relations and serves on the Subcommittees on African Affairs; East Asia and Pacific Affairs; and International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, and International Environmental Protection. Hillary is not involved in any foreign relations committees.

“Well, Abraham Lincoln served two years in the U.S.House,
and seemed to do all right.”
~Newt Gingrich, commenting on Obama’s experience

The Emperor Clearly has no Clothes but it seems that Nudity is now in Fashion.

On Dec. 3rd, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) declassified a report that had been released to the current administration intelligence group as late as August of this year, that “with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program“. The next day, Tuesday the Prez stated that he was never forewarned of the current intelligence communities’ report on Iran. This coming out because the report was released to the administration in August, so what he’s saying is at no point in the last 3 months, did anyone let him know… “Uh W, there could be a chance that Iran hasn’t been working towards this nuke goal…” And during that same time, he continued to spout that the Iranians were hell bent on getting these weapons as well as we should be watching them to start WWIII (Bush speech Oct. 18th, 2007).

This intelligence report is now coming under fire from the GOP why? Well: 1) because it contradicts a 2005 report that stated Iran is 10 years from creating a nuke weapon and 2) because the GOP believe the NIE is now politicizing it’s reports (all of the sudden they are NOW favoring a political parties agenda… imagine that), OR 3) could it be that this contradicts the planned agenda and rhetoric the GOP has been throwing up all over America that Iran is a bigger threat than the reality?

The NIE defends it’s report (Vanee Vines, spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), defended the report, saying that each NIE is a “group exercise” involving the “entire intelligence community.”) and white house stands by the intelligence communities information (this time) as it’s a coordinated and group effort made up of many agencies and people, and NOT created by just a few political hacks that ignore real intelligence and like a bad reality show, edit together a report to fit their own storyline.

This Bushian etymology was tracked by Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post’s website and shows a time line of his public statements, and how they have evolved as the evolution of intelligence on Iran has come to light – some interesting changes in message can be noted around the time the new intelligence was presented to the administration:

March 31st 2007: “Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon…”

June 5th 2007: Iran’s “pursuit of nuclear weapons…”

June 19th 2007: “consequences to the Iranian government if they continue to pursue a nuclear weapon…”

July 12th 2007: “the same regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons…”

August 6th 2007: “this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon…”

Notice a pattern?

Then as Froomkin asserts around early August the rhetoric changes (McConnell, or someone, must have briefed him then, however, Bush only says that new information was available, however, he wasn’t told what it was):

August 9th: “They have expressed their desire to be able to enrich uranium, which we believe is a step toward having a nuclear weapons program…”

August 28th: “Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons…”

October 4th: “you should not have the know-how on how to make a (nuclear) weapon…”

October 17th: “until they suspend and/or make it clear that they, that their statements aren’t real, yeah, I believe they want to have the **capacity**, the **knowledge**, in order to make a nuclear weapon.”

Before August 9th, it’s: Trying to develop, build or pursue a nuclear weapon.

After August 9th, it’s: Desire, pursuit, want…knowledge technology know-how to enrich uranium.

The National Intelligence Estimate this week talks of the Iranians suspending their nuclear weapons program in 2003, yet, still try to push the threat of Iran even though it’s become visible that his tone has changed and he may have lied to the general public about the threat of Iran…. sound familiar??? *Cough* Iraq…

It’s ultimately become clear though, (and if it hasn’t already) that this new information has irreparably damaged American credibility regarding international policy efforts. In my mind it looks like we have someone that has lied to the nation about the treat of violence from another nation, in a time where American resources are already drawn thin in areas of the world that are not immediately threating to home soil interests.

I knew one earlier president that lied and was impeached… he lied about the relationship between himself and an intern – something no where near the threat to civil liberties or American safety as would be lying about the threat of nuclear war.