McCain's hypocrisy on torture
On the subject of waterboarding, here's John McCain, who was tortured by the North Vietnamese, last October:
Waterboarding is a form of torture no matter how it is done and should be a prohibited among U.S. military interrogation practices, Republican presidential candidate John McCain said today, taking issue with GOP rival Rudy Giuliani’s recent remarks.
"Anyone who knows what waterboarding is could not be unsure. It is a horrible torture technique used by Pol Pot and being used on Buddhist monks as we speak," said McCain after a campaign stop at Dordt College here.
"People who have worn the uniform and had the experience know that this is a terrible and odious practice and should never be condoned in the U.S. We are a better nation than that."
And here, also from October:
"All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today," Mr. McCain, who spent more than five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, said in a telephone interview.
He's said that waterboarding violates the Geneva Conventions; he's also said that subjecting a prisoner to that particular form of torture is "no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank."
So in light of all that, of course, John McCain today voted against a bill in the Senate that would have banned the use of waterboarding by US intelligence agencies.
I hate to use what's already become a blogging cliché just in the span of a few hours, but apparently John McCain was against torture before he was for it.