Just when it looks like John McCain has reformed from his RINO ways, the old John McCain resurfaces.\u00a0 His tortured reasoning is very damaging for several reasons:<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 1.\u00a0 There was no reason for him to opine on the subject of water boarding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 2.\u00a0 He is clearly wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 3.\u00a0 He gives cover to a weak administration with regard to critical national security issues.<\/p>\n
Water boarding is not<\/em> torture.\u00a0 One of the statements I heard on Fox News the other night was some loudmouthed liberal saying that no one who has ever been water boarded has called it anything but torture.\u00a0 Excuse me, but I was personally water boarded as part of my SERES (Survival Escape Resistance Evasion) training in 1968.\u00a0 Unlike these morons, I understand exactly what happens.\u00a0 It was a decidedly unpleasant experience, I didn\u2019t want to undergo it then, and certainly wouldn\u2019t want to undergo it again.\u00a0 But real torture results in permanent injury.\u00a0 Torture involves things such as pulling out teeth and hooking up electrical power to one\u2019s gonads.\u00a0 Torture is what the other<\/em> guys do to our<\/em> guys whenever they have the opportunity.\u00a0 Torture is also what Obama is allowing to happen to people we capture now because he is still using rendition tactics.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t do the water boarding, he allows someone else to it.\u00a0 Torture is also what Great Britain, France, Germany and every other civilized nation does when it feels its national security is at risk.\u00a0 Those who pretend otherwise are na\u00efve fools.\u00a0<\/p>\n What Bush did was remarkable.\u00a0 Clinton was just sending people to garden spots like Egypt where real torture was being done.\u00a0 But, Bush had two problems with that policy:\u00a0 1. We encouraged other countries to do things we claimed were illegal and immoral.\u00a0 2. We lost control of the process and lost critical intelligence as a result.\u00a0 So Bush said no.\u00a0 He said we will take them to Guantanamo, and we will get the information from them using techniques that are tough, but which are a far cry from torture.\u00a0\u00a0 The ONLY difference between what Clinton did and what Obama is doing is that Bush didn\u2019t play games and pretend it wasn\u2019t happening.\u00a0<\/p>\n McCain is parsing words to try and justify a conclusion that is clearly inaccurate.\u00a0 Numerous experts say that our intelligence didn\u2019t realize the significance of the nickname of the courier until Khalid Sheikh Mohammed tipped them off that this was one of the people who had direct access to Osama bin Laden.\u00a0 That is an extremely important distinction.\u00a0 Yes, other people may have mentioned this guy\u2019s name before Khalid Sheikh Mohammed did, but that would have meant little to the intelligence community.\u00a0 It would be the equivalent of someone telling Germany there was a secret military installation at Los Alamos.\u00a0 That probably happened.\u00a0 A lot of people knew there was a secret military installation there.\u00a0 But, what Germany did not know was that this was where the U.S. was constructing a nuclear weapon there.\u00a0 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was one of a handful of people who knew how to communicate with Osama bin Laden.\u00a0 Even if he just confirmed information already obtained from another source, it was still incredibly important information.<\/p>\n I, unfortunately, had a lot of personal training with regard to interrogation techniques.\u00a0 It is true that most intelligence experts believe that information obtained under extreme duress, such as torture, is of questionable value.\u00a0 There is merit to that position.\u00a0 But, that is not the complete story.\u00a0 It depends on the kind of information you want.\u00a0 For example, suppose police have someone in custody who they know kidnapped a little girl and has stashed her away some place.\u00a0\u00a0 If that person is put under duress, they are very likely to tell the police where she is located.\u00a0 Is anyone really na\u00efve enough to think that the police would not do whatever is necessary to get this information?\u00a0 This information may not hold up in a court of law, but it may save that girl\u2019s life.\u00a0 This is exactly the type of information that our intelligence people were trying to get from the enhanced interrogation.\u00a0 Lives were saved as a result.<\/p>\n I suspect that Osama bin Laden could have been captured alive.\u00a0 I also suspect that this was not even considered because Obama had boxed himself into a corner and would have had no good option for dealing with a live Osama bin Laden.\u00a0 What was he going to do, bring him to New York for trial?\u00a0 So instead, we just killed him to avoid the problem.\u00a0<\/p>\n Whether it is Obama, or another U.S. President, at some point in the future we are going to get our hands on someone else who has information we absolutely have to get.\u00a0 Sadly, because of people like John McCain, the balanced rational and moral alternative brilliantly developed by George W. Bush is now off the table.\u00a0 Sad!<\/p>\n TDM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just when it looks like John McCain has reformed from his RINO ways, the old John McCain resurfaces.\u00a0 His tortured reasoning is very damaging for several reasons: \u00a0\u00a0 1.\u00a0 There was no reason for him to opine on the subject … Continue reading