Leaving aside the horrors of actual torture, it is interesting to examine how the issue plays in the current US presidential campaign. Most prominent is Senator John McCain’s use of torture as an element that qualifies him to lead. He suffered torture as a POW during the Vietnam war. In part, it made him a hero. He suffered for his country. Ultimately, torture led him to the realization that he loved his country above all else and, if he survived, would dedicate his life to public service.
This story is so moving and powerful that the campaign uses it as a foundation of its appeal to voters. Here’s one McCain campaign ad that features the story, almost too insistently:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W9v0mCyLCg[/youtube]
There is much to admire in Sen. McCain’s record and how he then addressed the torture issue as a senator. For much of this current administration, he has been a passionate and frequent opponent to the Bush Administration’s use of torture and attempts to legalize and soft-pedal it in the “War on Terror.” Here is a distilled example of his principled opposition to the use of torture in places where suspects in the “War on Terror” are held (he addresses the torture technique of waterboarding, but rightly sees it only as one way of torturing prisoners):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kj_sHEcnP4[/youtube]
McCain later — and unfortunately, in my view — softened his position on the US use of torture. Last February, he voted against a bill that would have banned the CIA from using waterboarding as an interrogation tactic. The bill would have required the CIA to abide by the Army Field Manual, which also prohibits beatings, electric or temperature shocks, forced nudity, mock executions, and the use of dogs. Defending his vote,McCain said that while he remains opposed to waterboarding, “We always supported allowing the CIA to use extra measures.”
As the Boston Globe commented dryly, “Extra measures? Then what are rules for?”
Even then, I was not prepared for this tidbit in Gov. Sarah Palin’s nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. After Republican after Republican extolled McCain’s war hero record and went into sometimes excruciating detail about his torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese, Palin — with that smirk she tries to pass off as irony — said this:
Al Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights.
As one blogger put it, “that’s Republican-speak — now at last adopted with full throat by the McCain campaign — for ‘will not stop inflicting on suspected terrorists every torture that was inflicted on John McCain by the North Vietnamese.'”
So torture is not OK when it is used against “us.” Torture is OK when it is used against “them.”
I’m not a McCain supporter, but I do believe he is a better man than this. He knows first hand what torture is and rightly opposed it. He should be the “maverick” he claims to be and reassert that position, and not sacrifice his honor and credibility on this crucial issue.