<p>As I’ve said before, I think McCain is a very decent and honorable person and if he is the nominee I will support him. However, his most recent attempt to roll back our efforts against terrorists gives me major pause. If his proposal for interrogation would have resulted in not being able to apprehend KSM or not stopping the multiple plots against us that have resulted from the interrogation methods being used then I think he is no better than the Democrats in realizing that war is different than a police investigation and that terrorists are different than soldiers.</p>
<p>“That’s why I like Rudy’s chances in the primaries.”</p>
<p>I like that scenario so much that I’m sticking with it!</p>
<p>do ff knows more than military men…wow…how does he know that…</p>
<p>McCain, a man who was TORTURED is clueless and FF who has such experience questions him…I trust McCain on this more than our President who cut and run on his service…</p>
<p>as for Rudy, he has such class and moral values…</p>
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<p>I believe Sen. McCain knows more about the subject than anyone else here, certainly including myself, and probably including the majority of combat veterans. There are many things I disagree with him about, but when a survivor of five years of torture talks about the Geneva Convention, I’m going to listen with great care. If after listening, I still can’t agree with him, I do not attribute that disagreement to his failure to understand the difference between war and police investigation. This man knows about war.</p>
<p>The thing is, CGM, one can disagree with McCain’s positions without being satan incarnate. One can respect his service, view him as a hero and a great American without agreeing with him on every issue. Not everything is black and white. It’s also quite fine for a member of a particular party to select one candidate over another for whatever reason they choose. It’s really none of the other party’s business, beyond the normal voyeuristic interest.</p>
<p>I’d also like to say, CGM, that FF’s post seriously and respectfully articulated a position. Unlike yours. Decent and honorable were his words and clueless was yours. Are you so completely partisan that you don’t consider different candidates’ positions carefully and, instead, simply pull the lever for whomever other members of your party choose for you?</p>
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<p>Yep, it certainly is possible. I do it myself. But I don’t think attributing the difference of opinion to McCain’s inability to comprehend war and understand the definition of a soldier is an example of that kind of respectful disagreement.</p>
<p>The following item at issue was ratified by the US Senate in 1955. The only item in question is 1(c). Why didn’t our ratification of this convention protect Sen.McCain from the true torture that he suffered at the hands of the NVA? What is wrong with clarifying the obviously vague clause? The detainees are, at worst, being subjected to our own military training tecniques. Our adversaries are employing medieval torture (often using modern tools). I strenuously object to those who equate the two.</p>
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http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/0/e160550475c4b133c12563cd0051aa66?OpenDocument
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<p>Unless I am very much mistaken, at no time may an American soldier accused of serious wrongdoing be denied the right to speak to an attorney and to go before an impartial arbitrator. This applies even to the period of basic training, it applies in all locations around the globe, and it applies despite the fact that we have an all-volunteer armed force whose members willingly sign away many of their Constitutional rights at the outset of service.</p>
<p>It is also news to me that any trainee in our armed forces is subjected to extended periods of solitary confinement.</p>
<p>(I assume that you’re talking specifically about Gitmo here; the “at worst” scenario is far worse at Abu Ghraib and other secret locations.)</p>
<p>driver, </p>
<p>It’s not about them, it’s about us. It is what standard will we choose to follow? There’s a difference. We could simply nuke those we have disputes with couldn’t we, or posion gas them (we have alot stockpiled) but we choose not to as it is a standard most Americans don’t want to go to. When we slip down to below a certain level, what do we become? </p>
<p>America attempts everyday to be a civil nation, a nation of laws. Those we have conflicts with sometimes don’t make that effort (some do). Should we adopt their policies or keep ours? </p>
<p>The right keeps talking about when we do A,B or C the terrorist’s win? How bout with this issue? If they can make us change and become like them, did we win?</p>
<p>The Right isn’t advocating doing what they do. Mutilating bodies to obtain information is what they do. No one is advocating that even though the echo chamber on the left implies it with the way they throw around the word “torture”. There is a difference between that and coercive interrogations. Think more along the lines of loud music like Janet Reno in Waco.</p>
<p>Would you want it done to your son if captured?</p>
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<p>What is your reason for believing that the result of giving this executive more leeway will be along the lines of Waco and not along the lines of Abu Ghraib? Do executives in general, and this administration in particular, have a good track record of restraint and good judgment in their use of power?</p>
<p>Hanna – What driver is referring to is Ranger/Green Beret training in what torture is like. Most of what the military thinks it knows about this stuff it learned from debriefing people who were prisoners in Vietnam and Korea, and then training elite soldiers to cope with that kind of pressure (and monitoring the results). The goal of the training, by the way, is not to get them never to “crack” – apparently the conclusion has been that everyone does eventually crack.</p>
<p>browninfall – It’s more than loud music (although that’s part of it).</p>
<p>JHS is correct, that’s what I refer to–except that only waterboarding is designed to simulate torture–the rest is just to try and get you to quit. All of this stuff we hear about–waterboarding, loud music sleep deprivation, subjection to cold–is SOP. I don’t consider it torture. Opie, I have four male relatives/friends who went through it. You’re allowed to break during waterboarding and still pass.</p>
<p>I’d be interested in a response from someone re my questions in #167. Why didn’t our ratification of article 3 save McCain from his genuine torture? What’s wrong with clarifying the obviously vague 1(c)?</p>
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<p>If Rangers and Green Berets in training who are accused of serious misconduct are denied access to lawyers and/or impartial tribunals, please say so. Ditto if they spend months in solitary confinement. No one has contradicted my assertions.</p>
<p>And I repeat my question about why we should trust this administration or any other executive not to abuse additional power it may obtain, particularly since it has already shown itself unwilling or unable to properly supervise the use of the power it already has.</p>
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You are, uncharacteristically, completely missing the point. The issue deals with the treatment of POWs during interrogation. Not misconduct by soldiers.</p>
<p>Why didn’t Article 3 save McCain from his abuse in N Vietnam?</p>
<p>“Why didn’t Article 3 save McCain from his abuse in N Vietnam?”</p>
<p>Because they didn’t honor it. </p>
<p>As I said, What do “we” want to be? </p>
<p>Preparing a soldier for possibilities via “practice torture” still isn’t the same as the real thing. Your buddies went through training, then what? Did they get to go home at some point? It’s not the same. </p>
<p>And really, this is more about CIA opperatives or contractors than the military. The guys who’ve appeared in street clothes, done brutal interrogations in some cases killing the prisoner and then walking out, without being held accountable. </p>
<p>In some ways if the military were the only ones allowed to do these procedures, it might be better. The military would at least be responsible and accountable. </p>
<p>George wasn’t on TV this morning asking for this to pass for the military, he was asking for the CIA and their “contractors”. </p>
<p>Why do we trade with Vietnam… now?</p>
<p>Hanna, no one is talking about denial of access to attorneys or impartial tribunals. For you to bring this up is a red herring. The issue at hand is the method used to get the type of information that has already been proven to have caused the capture of the 9/11 mastermind and to disrupt a number of follow-on plots. All this was done without resorting to true torture, yet McCain apparently doesn’t even want these procedures used.</p>
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because the North Vietnamese chose to ignore the Geneva Conventions. Are you suggesting we do likewise? or that they GC are irrelevant and we withdraw?</p>
<p>Actually, in this respect the GC are irrelevant in the sense that they were clearly written in a time where warfare was between nation states that could have representatives agree to and sign the accords with the implicit understanding that all signatories would adhere to them. That is far from today’s world.</p>