There is so much wrong with this debate that I don’t know where to start.
McCain was a military man from a military family, he has spent decades dealing with national security and yet he pretends that he doesn’t know the difference between fighting an enemy nation and fighting terrorists. Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union all violated the laws of wars, especially the treatment of prisoners, but they did take prisoners and followed some of the laws of war. Al Qaeda takes no prisoners and follows no laws.
Its people are not entitled to any treatment based on mutuality whatsoever.
McCain brings up the claim that waterboarding originated in the Spanish Inquisition. That’s a myth that appears to have been spread by Sidney Blumenthal. The technique long predated it. And it was fairly mild by inquisition standards. Torture during that period was far more horrifying than anyone today wants to deal with.
Ditto for McCain’s claim that we executed Japanese war criminals for waterboarding Americans. Japan’s war criminals used prisoners to test chemical weapons and ate Allied prisoners of war. Waterboarding was about the mildest thing they would have done.
Bill O’Reilly starts promoting his book and McCain starts relitigating Malmedy and Dresden. Whatever point might have existed has already long been lost. Fog of war doesn’t apply. The whole thing isn’t even relevant.
A military conflict is not even relevant for that matter. We are not engaged in a military conflict in another state. We’re fighting non-state terrorists. The closest analogies were Communist agents in the US and Indian raiders. The enemy has one core strategy for the military side of the conflict and that is to kill American civilians. Our purpose is to stop them. That requires enhanced interrogation.
None of this is new. We’ve been having this debate for a while now. McCain is familiar with the issues. So why instead of addressing them does he begin babbling about Dresden?




















