McCain on Waterboarding of 9/11 Planner: “Unconscionable”

20120713-Abu_Zubaydah

un·con·scion·a·ble
ˌənˈkänSH(ə)nəbəl/Submit
adjective
1. not right or reasonable.

Or so Senator McCain, who has developed quite a fondness for Jihadists lately, believes.

McCain… elaborated on an event that was reported Monday by The Post, noting that officials waterboarding a terror suspect reported to CIA headquarters that they had “gotten everything we can out of the guy.”

“The message came back, ‘Waterboard him some more.’ That is unconscionable,” McCain said.

There wasn’t much “suspect” about the suspect.

Abu Zubaydah rose from very low level mujahedin to third or fourth man in al Qaeda. Served as Osama Bin Laden’s senior lieutenant, managed a network of training camps and was one of the planners of 9/11.

Unconscionable. I don’t think Senator McCain knows what that word means.

Asked about the report, McCain said it offers further evidence of the inefficiencies of using torture on American enemies. “When you torture someone they will say anything you want to hear to make the pain stop. So I never, ever believed this bologna that, well, because of waterboarding they got information,” he said.

That’s an oversimplification. While torture doesn’t magically produce information, it’s a viable part of a sustained interrogation program. If you accept the first thing that a tortured terrorist says, then yes it’s worthless.

That’s why you say, ‘Waterboard him some more’ instead.

  • NAHALKIDES

    McCain’s comments reveal first of all his Progressive make-up: feeling self-consciously virtuous, without justification, is the Progressive M.O. To McCain and his brethren on the Left, it’s more important to feel morally superior to your opponents than it is to actually be good, or to do what’s right for the country.

    But there’s something else here that’s worth looking into, namely the report itself which I find highly suspect. It suggests whoever made it up (and it was almost certainly made up) has the same ignorance of waterboarding that Leftists like McCain do: they seem to think you waterboard the subject to get some new information out of him, and that is not the case. You waterboard the subject while asking him questions to which you already know the answer; once he starts telling the truth you can try continuing the interrogation later, without waterboarding. Thus the purpose of waterboarding is to change an uncooperative terrorist into a cooperative one, not to directly elicit information that had previously been unknown. That being the case, neither the alleged message to CIA headquarters that they “had gotten everything we can out of the guy” nor the alleged “Waterboard him some more” reply make any sense.

    • JackSpratt

      There is a reason why McLame was the only republican involved in the Keating Five scandal.

  • wileyvet

    Oh, boo hoo! Feel sorry for a scumbag terrorist. You’re mistreating him. How about pistol whipping, or electrodes to the genitals, or hung by his wrists and beaten on the soles of his feet? Good, do whatever you have to do, and if they don’t cooperate, just off them. One fewer soldier of Allah in the jihad against us.

    • objectivefactsmatter

      Unlawful combatants can be shot. No problem.

  • edlancey

    Of course, the dark truth about torture isn’t that it doesn’t work – but that is does. However it compromises the torturer – that’s why they should be lauded, not castigated.

    Anyway, McCain probably thinks unconscionable means “no-brainer”.

    • Drakken

      Torture does work, I have never seen or heard of a haji walking out of a session with a session with modern electricity in which he wasn’t singing like a canary. Always remember, red is positive, black is negative and make sure his nuts are wet, works every time.

    • tickletik

      Do you really want government agents to exist who either can order a man to be tortured or have tortured a man? Are you really sure you want that to be legal?

      Today we use it against foreign terrorists. And why not against domestic terrorists? Then one day the definition of terrorist changes, or the burden of proof changes, or the wrong party gets into office, etc.

      This idea is begging for trouble. Like prohibition it sounds real good in principle, but in practice it is sheer destruction.

      • edlancey

        That’s another (good) question but the old liberal trope that “they will make up any old rubbish” is such a pathetic argument (up there with the Koch brothers, etc) that it is beyond disappointing, but not surprising, to see such a senior US politician repeat it – even if McCain is a certifiable moron.

        • tickletik

          We have/had a system of checks and balances for a reason. There is a reason for posse comitatus, there is a reason for the 5th amendment, there is a reason for the 8th amendment.

          I am actually not opposed to torture on either legal or ethical grounds. Our constitution only applies to ourselves, not to foreign nationals. The geneva convention does not apply to non-uniformed combatants at all. Ethically, I see no problem with torturing these monsters.

          The problem is that on a Practical level, I know what will happen. I know this will be abused, I know this will be used on Americans and definitely on those foreign nationals who this should never be used on. I know that at the very least it is going to make us much colder and much more corrupt than we would be otherwise.

          I don’t agree with McCain on much, but on this, I believe he is 100% right.

      • JackSpratt

        So we should get rid of punishment, because it could be used on us? A government that would use torture on its citizens could care less if that torture was used on terrorists before.

  • DVult

    He claims waterboarding is wrong because it doesn’t work. Does that mean it is OK if it does work?

    • JackSpratt

      Too much empirical evidence that it works. If it didn’t work it is much too meek and weak of a treatment.

      • tickletik

        It’s irrelevant if it works or not. What’s relevant is that it will be corrupted. This is far too much power being given away.

        • JackSpratt

          So we let a city get nuked, because it ‘might’ be corrupted. Not smart thinkiing.

  • Softly Bob

    Waterboarding doesn’t kill nor does it maim. It may be horribly unpleasant and may cause psychological scarring but that’s all it does. In fact it probably doesn’t even cause psychological scarring to these jihadis because they’re already scarred by Islam. They are sub-human robots who have sold their souls to the dark side.
    So go ahead, waterboard them as much as you like and when you have got the information that you want, drop them all through a trapdoor on the end of a rope!

  • mcorps

    We are Americans! We don’t, or shouldn’t, do this! Doing it makes us no better than Gestapo!

    • JackSpratt

      Leave it to a drip like you to invoke moral relativism. The reason the worst treatment we use on these stinking terrorists is waterboarding, is because we are Americans.

    • GSR

      We only waterboarded 2 or 3 of the top AQ more than a decade ago…..when there was credible suspicion of more 9/11 attacks daily. Get over it. I agreed then and still agree now.

    • sammid

      We as Americans should not be supplying the enemy in Syria with millions of dollars and arms, but McCain and his buddy Lindsay Graham did!
      TREASON!

    • NAHALKIDES

      Was that intended as parody?

    • Drakken

      Have you ever seen what haji does to a American or an ally when they get ahold of them? There isn’t enough left to put a jigsaw puzzle together, there is a reason that no pictures exist of Americans captured by muslims, it would insight the public to killem all and let allah sortem out. Before you ask, yes I have seen it up close and personal, that is why to this day, I have a no prisoners policy.

  • JackSpratt

    When they get all they can get out of the miserable sub-humans take them out back and put a bullet through their head.
    McLame is either senile or stupid.

  • PDK

    I was watching some stuff on the real mob, the mafia, last night.
    -
    The hit man sent first needed information out of one of his targets.
    -
    When he gets the target, a real tough nut he works him over good with fists. Still the guy does not crack. So he puts the guys head in a vice and turns the vice until one of the mark’s eyeballs pops out.
    -
    At that, the mark coughs up the knowledge and the hit man does the mark. Permanently, like 6 feet under.
    -
    John has lost a lot of his stuff as he has aged.
    -
    I realize many will eventually say anything they think their interrogator wants to hear, but there is a moment when the tough nut cracks or dies. It is up to the interrogator to intuit if the tough nut coughed it up or not.
    -
    John was a legitimate hero, but now suffers from a bit of the, “old bull with teats” syndrome.
    -
    John, your liberalism is showing.
    -
    From the Sanctuary, @ http://the-pdk.blogspot.com/
    I’m PDK: Thank you.

    • tickletik

      And when they have the wrong man? The program is in it’s infancy right now, there are still some shreds of the constitution being respected, and there are many eyes still on the process because it is controversial.

      What about when it’s established and the momentum of precedent makes it not controversial, and the constitution is a little more frayed, and people care less. How long do you think it’s going to take for some corrupt official to use this power to intentionally torture an innocent man for some corrupt reason?

      Do you realize how many sociopaths we currently have running around in government already? Do you realize how much bribery, and business is being done? How can you give these maniacs this much power without being terrified of the inevitable consequences?

      • JackSpratt

        Sorry, but our Constitution only applies to U.S. citizens.

  • SoCalMike

    McCain’s wholesale self-defeating stupidity is unconscionable.
    Kindness to the cruel is cruelty to the kind and innocent.
    This burned out old coot has to go! Put him out to pasture.

  • Mike Nelson

    First off I do not like MC Lame. I’ll cut him some slack on the torture issue as he .was really tortured in Vietnam. He just projects his actual torture onto the CIA Program and his comments have to be taken with a grain of salt because that is what they are worth. Personally I would have had our buds from the Mossad and the KGB [note not SVR] really interrogate the top AQ leaders and just record the secessions. The US are the good guys and don’t engage in the harsh
    interrogation methods that need to be used Muslim against terror groups. They want to take over the world and impose their crazed theocratic Uma on all of the Infidels [US].

    • objectivefactsmatter

      I agree. And it makes it questionable whether he’s suitable to hold office. Better to have him leading activists with known biases rather than pretending he has the ability to make rational decisions.

  • Anukem Jihadi

    Ah, yes but I wonder if waterboarding a 9 11 master mind upsets McCain as much as having to listen to reports of Free Syrian army atrocities against Christians. Probably not.

    http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2014/02/gop-sen-apologizes-for-mccain-tantrum-at-syrian-christian-leader-meeting/

    McCain is a weasel and a fraud.

  • Jakareh

    John McCain asked for the job of running as the Republican candidate against Barack Obama. Then he refused to use “Reverend” Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright and other issues that would have devastated Obama because the liberal media would have thought less of him. That’s dereliction of duty and it’s why I don’t respect John McCain.

  • Steeloak

    Waterboarding is NOT torture. John McCain, who endured actual torture, should be ashamed of himself for conflating the two.

    • edlancey

      Did he ? I’m sure he was singing like a canary before they had the chance.

      • Steeloak

        I meant endured as in he went through the process of torture, not that he didn’t break – he did, as did all the American captives in North Vietnamese hands. They never stopped resisting however and were never broken in spirit.

  • Ellsworth Toohey

    To be subjected to water boarding is part of the special forces training. People survies to it. How many survived jihadist tortures ?
    Anyway as long as the terrorist islamic “feelings” are not hurt, go ahead, waterboard them !

  • Von Stierlitz

    Torture-shmorture. Just shoot the bastards.

  • nimbii

    A lot of good it did McCain… He can’t even raise his arms above his shoulders as a result of the torture he bravely withstood in North Vietnam.

    We are childish and narcissistic to think wonderful us to be above torture. Some say it does not work, but anyone in the behavioral sciences knows that when it comes to individual behavior, everyone is an individual.

    Torture may not work on some, but it will work on others, particularly the highly imaginative.

  • pete

    waiting for mcclames thoughts when he’s in the hospital and the doc’s prescription is a sticker on his forehead stating, “Do NOT Hydrate.”
    THAT’S some unconscionable torture currently performed at NHS in UK – if it works in average britain, it’ll work in murica