A provocative ThinkProgress piece by Ali contains this excerpt from the impending issue of Newsweek:
[Suzanne Smalley:] On torture, why should the CIA be treated differently from the armed services regarding the use of harsh interrogation tactics?
[John McCain:] Because they play a special role in the United States of America and our ability to combat terrorists. But we have made it very clear that there is nothing they can do that would violate the Geneva Conventions, the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibits torture. We could never torture anyone, but some people misconstrue that who don't understand what the Detainee Treatment Act and the Geneva Conventions are all about.
Ali tackled several questions that sprang to mind - particularly the depressingly relativistic debate over waterboarding, and McCain's vote against limiting the CIA to only the interrogation techniques listed in Army Field Manual.
(In a comment, "impeachcheneythenbush" helpfully includes a link to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the USA ratified on October 21, 1994.)
- - -
From MSNBC's Firstread:
"If we’re not better than our enemy," said McCain, "then it's very hard for us to maintain and keep the moral high ground in this ideological struggle that we're in against radical Islamic extremism."
- - -
This has me wondering...
What's lawful, at the moment?
And what's "a horrible torture technique" as you're reading this?
- - -
(I didn't see a diary or story covering this - if it's redundant, let me know and I'll take it down.)