McCain Says Torture Cheney Defends was Criminal, Helped al-Qaeda
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Related subjects: Executive Powers, In the Loop, Rights & Freedoms, Security & Surveillance, U.S. Law, U.S. news, U.S. Politics Comments Off
Former vice president Dick Cheney has been engaged in a relentless public relations campaign, attacking Pres. Obama for ongoing efforts to clarify who violated the law in staging an extra-legal system of detention and torture, and openly defending torture as useful, necessary and good. But Obama’s opponent in the 2008 elections and a leader of Cheney’s own party, Sen. John McCain, says the torture was a violation of the law and helped America’s enemies.
On CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’, McCain said “I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan”, adding that the harsh interrogations “helped al Qaeda recruit. I got that from an al Qaeda operative in a prison camp in Iraq… I think that the ability of us to work with our allies was harmed.”
McCain also noted that the FBI and other sources have reported that information was obtainable or was obtained by other means. In fact, information from the FBI suggests that the information acquired in connection with waterboarding was “counterproductive” and untrustworthy, and that the salient fact of waterboarding is that it caused cooperative witnesses to “shut down” and stop talking.
Mr. Cheney has repeatedly sought release of specific memos, produced by people who allegedly worked with him, or within the alternate chain of command he erected, to oversee the torture of detainees, which he claims support the idea that “torture works”. Intelligence officials have opposed the release of the memos for a number of reasons, including the possibility that those associated with them might face prosecution.
The administration opposes the release of the memos also because their veracity has been questioned by various prominent sources, including the FBI and military intelligence, and because their content might be inflammatory and could put American personnel or citizens at greater risk of attack abroad. For some, it is increasingly unclear what Cheney is defending, if not his own involvement in a flagrantly extra-legal (read: illegal) scheme to enact a regime of secret detention and routine torture.
Jay Bookman writes in the Atlanta Journal Constitution that:
… by the second Bush term, even President Bush had largely stopped listening to the crazy man whispering in his ear. The Bush White House ordered a halt to “enhanced interrogation techniques” that Cheney defends as necessary even today. Over Cheney’s protests, Bush forced Donald Rumsfeld to resign as secretary of defense, replacing him with the more level-headed Robert Gates, who remains SecDef under Obama. Under Gates and newly appointed Secretary of State Condi Rice, the Bush administration in its second term took a less confrontational and arrogant approach to advancing U.S. interests overseas, leaving Cheney sitting on the sidelines and muttering to himself in frustration.
Sen. McCain is a leading voice on the issue of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of “enhanced interrogations”, because he was subject to brutal torture for years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. The senator has, for the most part, been a staunch opponent of all forms of prisoner abuse, though he did grudgingly support an effort by Pres. Bush, in 2006, to expand the authority to use force against detainees.
But Sen. McCain has consistently defended the obligation of the US to respect its treaty obligations —the US Constitution makes all ratified treaties co-equal to the Constitution, the “Supreme Law of the Land”— and to resist distorting or undermining the information obtained through interrogation by engaging in acts that amount to torture. He has also consistently said it is an obligation to democratic values and to the safety and dignity of our troops, that torture not be used, because it increases the likelihood they will suffer it.
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