Lesson learned in 2008 after 48 years, duh.
Posted on 05/17/2011 8:26:49 PM PDT by quantim
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Sen. Rick Santorum said Tuesday that Sen. John McCain, who spent 5 1/2 years enduring brutal treatment at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors, doesn't know how effective waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques can be. The Republican presidential contender insisted the tactics led the United States to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a speech last week that waterboarding al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, did not provide information that led to bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.
McCain said he asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and that the hunt for bin Laden did not begin with fresh information from Mohammed. In fact, the name of bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, came from a detainee held in another country.
"Not only did the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed, it actually produced false and misleading information," McCain said.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
There is a large number of people who believe if we don’t do it to them they won’t do it to any of ours. Lots of luck with that.
Yeah, and it’s more like “if we don’t dribble a little water on theirs, maybe the won’t chop the heads off of ours”.
What BS!
Wanna bet people in our country spend a lot more time worrying about their bad guys being waterboarded than they spend worrying about how our guys are treated.
We are fooked - W. Wallace
Santorum could be right, but to invoke McCain’s name on this subject shows he is still as stupid as when he went to bat for Spectre.
I’d like anyone of those people to state one country, just one who treated any of our POW’s with any sort of dignity. Just one.
Yup. The boy just grew a Dudley Do-Right chin, apparently the better to lead with it. Stoopid.
I am no fan of John McCain, but what a stupid thing to say about a man who was in the Hanoi Hilton...
Sometimes people closest to a subject are the one's with the least rational position. Don't ask somebody that's lost a loved one to a drunk driver if .01 is the proper level to declare a driver impaired. Don't ask a fire chief if a door should be left open. And don't ask victim of real torture if waterboarding is good policy.
Say what you want about McCain.
But there's no doubt Rick Santorum is too stupid to be dog catcher.
McCain went to SERE school before he spent 5 1/2 years in a NVA prison.
He knows how enhanced interrogation works.
Well, except for that part in his autobiography where John McCain admits that he broke under torture. McCain knows real torture, and that it works.
Every man breaks under torture.
I disagree a lot with McVain’s politics, but I will NEVER disparage his military service. Santorum owes McVain a huge apology!!
Santorum did NOT disparage McCain's service, either.
Santorum doesn't owe McCain anything.
“I am no fan of John McCain, but what a stupid thing to say about a man who was in the Hanoi Hilton”
Yeh I’m thinking McCain has a lot of up close and personal understanding of enhanced interrogation. It almost killed him. I can understand why he is agains’t us using it. We need to just leave him out of the conversation.
I think McCain has a lot of experience with torture. I don’t agree that enhanced interrogation or water boarding is torture. Also, terrorists are not protected by the Geneva Convention and are in the same category as spies and saboteurs. They are outside the laws of war and therefore are subject to summary execution. They are lucky to be alive at all.
No, torture did. Real torture, not the bluff torture we use. I think that is what Rick is saying. But no easy way to do that using McLame.
And another GOP candidate self-destructs.
Why do they make it so easy for the other side?
I understand all that. What I am saying is that you would expect McCain to be agains’t torture of any kind based on what he went through so I don’t think we should include McCain in the conversation about enhanced interrogation.
Santorum is wrong and McVain is right. The information did NOT come from KSM, but from another source according to other reports about this story. That, however, does not diminish the usefulness of waterboarding. In KSM's case, though, he has been waterboarded so many times that its continued use on him is questionable. He knows we won't let him die.
After McVain's experiences as a POW in Vietnam, I understand why he goes squishy on enhanced interrogation techniques. Does it work? Let me say this - I watched guys "break" in SERE school in the late 60s, and that was make believe; nothing like the real thing. Santorum would have done himself a bigger favor to keep his own counsel on this topic, than try to act like a provocative "leader". NONE of us, Santorum in particular, have walked a mile im McCain's moccasins. He spent over 5 years living inside the jaws of hell at the Hanoi Hilton. Every single day he breathes is a reminder of having his arms bound behind his back, from his wrists to his biceps, then being suspended for hours by his arms from a hook in the ceiling.
McCain doesn't understand interrogation!?? Santorum is an idiot!!
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