McCain: Torture Ineffective, Helped Terrorists Recruit

Just hours after former VP Dick Cheney defended the use of torture during an interview with Fox News Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), appearing on CBS' Face the Nation insisted that the use of torture on terrorism suspects violated international law, didn't work, and actually helped al Qaeda recruit additional members.

[Plain Jane]

Can we all say DUH! in unison? He left out that it also violates US law and the constitution.

[deer three pink]

WOW! Wonder why he didn't choose Ted Kennedy to be his running mate?

[CHECK SIX]

With all due respect to a great war hero,a man to admired,would have been a great president,an example of patriotism,it ,for the record be he was compromised under extreme torture..not the kindergarten stuff we allege use....no shame in that...
In his book "Faith Of my fathers'..

The punishment finally worked, McCain said. "Eventually, I gave them my ship's name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant."

Recalling how he gave up military information to his interrogators, McCain said: "I regret very much having done so. The information was of no real use to the Vietnamese, but the Code of Conduct for American Prisoners of War orders us to refrain from providing any information beyond our names, rank and serial number."

I guess any one of us would have done no less!
as far as jehedists???..9/11 was before any and all attempts by America to get info to again prevent that from happening!!....they need no excuse to try to kill us.

However I do respect Sen.McCains intententions..very noble from a great warrior!

It is true ,many do give false or useless info under torture..Mc Cain did that too,.but one must define torture!!

A lesser man than a McCain type may be more interested in his Ass ,than his faith,when push comes to shove,...it did work on That Sheik we have!!

[SaveAmerica]

And McCain is ineffective ! He lost the election because he is a backslider. Palin made him look strong. He was a disgrace at his townhall meeting showing his stand on illegals. McCain can speak for himself , he is a has been in the party. All career politicain have to go including the democrats lap dog McCain!

[sam]

Dick Cheney has degraded the reputation of integrity the United States has always held with the International community.Cheney and Bush must be held accountable for the torture and any and all war crimes including what they did to our own armed forces by lying about Iraqs involvement in Al Quida management.The deaths and maiming of or young soldiers was never necessary to protect America in any way.Haliburton has made billions off this war.

[Plain Jane]

What is it about our mentality that so many understand that Americans volunteer to fight in greater numbers when we suffer an outrage but fail to consider that others feel the same way? Why does a country with a judicial system founded on the principle of innocent until proven guilty and an understanding that forced confessions are a violation of every principle of justice and freedom have so many willing to torture suspects? Can people really be so ignorant as to not understand that surrendering to fear and violating our own principles destroys the freedom we are supposedly fighting to preserve? Maybe it's religious bigotry that makes them blind to how they are eroding the very fabric of our democracy with their willingness to ignore our constitution when it comes to Muslims? I've seen a number of posters claim "There's no such thing as Muslim Americans" and it made me shudder to remember Germans saying, "There's no such thing as Jewish Germans." These people are far more dangerous to our country than a few Islamic extremists could ever hope to be.

[Plain Jane]

CHECK SIX wrote:

With all due respect to a great war hero,a man to admired,would have been a great president,an example of patriotism,it ,for the record be he was compromised under extreme torture..not the kindergarten stuff we allege use....no shame in that...
In his book "Faith Of my fathers'..
The punishment finally worked, McCain said. "Eventually, I gave them my ship's name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant."
Recalling how he gave up military information to his interrogators, McCain said: "I regret very much having done so. The information was of no real use to the Vietnamese, but the Code of Conduct for American Prisoners of War orders us to refrain from providing any information beyond our names, rank and serial number."
I guess any one of us would have done no less!
as far as jehedists???..9/11 was before any and all attempts by America to get info to again prevent that from happening!!....they need no excuse to try to kill us.
However I do respect Sen.McCains intententions..very noble from a great warrior!
It is true ,many do give false or useless info under torture..Mc Cain did that too,.but one must define torture!!
A lesser man than a McCain type may be more interested in his Ass ,than his faith,when push comes to shove,...it did work on That Sheik we have!!

Of course torture works, if what you want is confessions. What would you confess to if tortured? Another thing that works is lining up a person's children and killing them one by one until the parent "confesses" and implicates anyone their captor wants to arrest. Sociopaths and psychopaths may not comprehend why doing just anything that "works" to get information or confessions doesn't work to preserve a country's freedom, but thankfully most of us know it is always wrong.

[ChildPlease]

Plain Jane wrote:

Can we all say DUH! in unison? He left out that it also violates US law and the constitution.

And it's immoral.

And it's something decent people never stoop to. We blew that one with Bush as President...

[GoodNewz]

“We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”

george orwell (1903-1950)

[SaveAmerica]

sam wrote:

Dick Cheney has degraded the reputation of integrity the United States has always held with the International community.Cheney and Bush must be held accountable for the torture and any and all war crimes including what they did to our own armed forces by lying about Iraqs involvement in Al Quida management.The deaths and maiming of or young soldiers was never necessary to protect America in any way.Haliburton has made billions off this war.

Obama has to be held accountable for his actions he has taken against the American people. He has violated the contitution and the faith of the office. He is no more then a common criminal appointing czars and having communist advisors in the whitehouse. Obama has to be stopped at all cost along with his cheerleaders who are set on destroying America!

[Populist]

Gen. Petraeus Warns Against Using Torture
May 11, 2007 http://tinyurl.com/2gbsso
The top U.S. commander in Iraq admonished his troops regarding the results of an Army survey that found that many U.S military personnel there are willing to tolerate some torture of suspects and unwilling to report abuse by comrades.

"This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we -- not our enemies -- occupy the moral high ground," Army Gen. David H. Petraeus wrote in an open letter dated May 10 and posted on a military Web site.
He rejected the argument that torture is sometimes needed to quickly obtain crucial information. "Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary," he stated.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/...

4 Star Generals Colin Powell, Wesley Clark and Anthony Zinni all say torture does not work!

PROOF: WHERE IS USAMA BIN LADEN?

[crazy ox3thong]

SaveAmerica wrote:

And McCain is ineffective ! He lost the election because he is a backslider. Palin made him look strong. He was a disgrace at his townhall meeting showing his stand on illegals. McCain can speak for himself , he is a has been in the party. All career politicain have to go including the democrats lap dog McCain!

oneffection?:-0 ineffecsion in Wet Virgino ?:-0

[jillo]

SaveAmerica wrote:

<quoted text> Obama has to be held accountable for his actions he has taken against the American people. He has violated the contitution and the faith of the office. He is no more then a common criminal appointing czars and having communist advisors in the whitehouse. Obama has to be stopped at all cost along with his cheerleaders who are set on destroying America!

What an idiot, you wouldn't know a capitalist if it sat on your face and called you mama. You are the scum of this country

[Populist]

Ex-Interrogator: Torture Doesn't Work
December 06, 2008 / http://tinyurl.com/c4urky
Writing under the pseudonym of Matthew Alexander, a former special intelligence operations officer, who in 1996 led an interrogations team in Iraq, has written a compelling book where he details his direct experience with torture practices. He conducted more than 300 interrogations and supervised more than a thousand and was awarded a Bronze Star for his achievements in Iraq. Alexander's nonviolent interrogation methods led Special Forces to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. His new book is titled "How to Break a Terrorist: The US Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq."

"It's extremely ineffective, and it's counterproductive to what we're trying to accomplish," he told reporters. "When we torture somebody, it hardens their resolve," Alexander explained. "The information that you get is unreliable ... And even if you do get reliable information, you're able to stop a terrorist attack, Al-Qaeda's then going to use the fact that we torture people to recruit new members." Alexander says torture techniques used in Iraq consistently failed to produce actionable intelligence and that methods outlined in the US Army Field Manual, which rest on confidence building, consistently worked and gave the interrogators access to critical information.
http://www.military.com/news/article/exinterr...

[Populist]

CIA official: no proof harsh techniques stopped terror attacks
April 24, 2009 / http://tinyurl.com/dmkfxd
WASHINGTON — The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.
That undercuts assertions by former vice president Dick Cheney and other former Bush administration officials that the use of harsh interrogation tactics including waterboarding, which is widely considered torture, was justified because it headed off terrorist attacks.
"It is difficult to quantify with confidence and precision the effectiveness of the program," Steven G. Bradbury, then the Justice Department's principal deputy assistant attorney general, wrote in a May 30, 2005, memo to CIA General Counsel John Rizzo, one of four released last week by the Obama administration.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66895.ht...

[Populist]

Flashback: Bush’s FBI Director Said Torture Didn’t Foil Any Terror Plots
Now that Bush administration officials have launched a major campaign to persuade us that torture “worked,” perhaps it’s worth recalling that George W. Bush’s own FBI director said in an interview last year that he wasn’t aware of a single planned terror attack on America that had been foiled by information obtained through torture.
Robert Mueller, who was appointed by Bush in 2001 and remains FBI director under Obama, delivered that assessment at the end of this December 2008 article in Vanity Fair on torture:

I ask Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls “enhanced techniques”?

“I’m really reluctant to answer that,” Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate:“I don’t believe that has been the case.”

That stands in direct contrast to Dick Cheney’s recent claim that torture has been “enormously valuable” in terms of “preventing another mass-casualty attack against the United States.”

You’d think that this sort of thing would throw a bit of a wrench into the Bushies’ campaign. But as Charles Kaiser notes, these types of statements haven’t really broken through the media din.

[Miyamoto Musashi]

Such a shame, that McCain would partake in harming the United States, even in affirming the many distorted views of its own citizenry.

The reality speaks for itself. THREE people were supposedly "tortured", yet the information gained from those admitted murderers saved thousands of American lives. The information was specific and stopped acts of terror.

One reason the Leftist destroyers want to "punish" such success is that historically the Left depends on random terror to gain power. Any method of breaking their core system of gaining power is seen as a threat. The radical Left has been trying to gut the CIA for decades.

[Johnathan Fall]

CHECK SIX wrote:

With all due respect to a great war hero,a man to admired,would have been a great president,an example of patriotism,it ,for the record be he was compromised under extreme torture..not the kindergarten stuff we allege use....no shame in that...
In his book "Faith Of my fathers'..
The punishment finally worked, McCain said. "Eventually, I gave them my ship's name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant."
Recalling how he gave up military information to his interrogators, McCain said: "I regret very much having done so. The information was of no real use to the Vietnamese, but the Code of Conduct for American Prisoners of War orders us to refrain from providing any information beyond our names, rank and serial number."
I guess any one of us would have done no less!
as far as jehedists???..9/11 was before any and all attempts by America to get info to again prevent that from happening!!....they need no excuse to try to kill us.
However I do respect Sen.McCains intententions..very noble from a great warrior!
It is true ,many do give false or useless info under torture..Mc Cain did that too,.but one must define torture!!
A lesser man than a McCain type may be more interested in his Ass ,than his faith,when push comes to shove,...it did work on That Sheik we have!!

You might have something there. Since Cheney doesn't feel it's torture, let's give him a little bit of the waterboard and find out who helped him carry out 9/11. Was it the Israeli secret service? Who financed it? Was it the oil companies? How much money did you make by contracting Haliburton to supply the war? Did Haliburton move it's headquarters to Dubai to avoid prosicution? If we have the "mastermind" of 9/11 in custody, why are we still fighting in Afganistan?
Then we can move on to George W Bush. "Were your pals upset the Talliban decided to go with the Argentina energy company instead of theirs? Did they push for a reason to invade Afganistan so they could cut out the middleman and take everything for themselves? Did you agree as long as you could go into Iraq next? DID YOU LIE TO AMERICANS TO START THIS WAR???

[Miyamoto Musashi]

With the implied and active threats to the CIA, FBI and other security operatives from the Left in America and especially after them gaining significant power to implement direct attacks on our security agencies, it is no surprise that some would be emasculated and very careful in responding to questions from any source that might make them open to political harassment and irrational prosecutions. The American Left is guaranteeing the continued destruction of American political and military power in the world.

[Azjaeger]

Plain Jane wrote:

What is it about our mentality that so many understand that Americans volunteer to fight in greater numbers when we suffer an outrage but fail to consider that others feel the same way? Why does a country with a judicial system founded on the principle of innocent until proven guilty and an understanding that forced confessions are a violation of every principle of justice and freedom have so many willing to torture suspects? Can people really be so ignorant as to not understand that surrendering to fear and violating our own principles destroys the freedom we are supposedly fighting to preserve? Maybe it's religious bigotry that makes them blind to how they are eroding the very fabric of our democracy with their willingness to ignore our constitution when it comes to Muslims? I've seen a number of posters claim "There's no such thing as Muslim Americans" and it made me shudder to remember Germans saying, "There's no such thing as Jewish Germans." These people are far more dangerous to our country than a few Islamic extremists could ever hope to be.

The analogy between Jews in Germany and Muslims in America is a truly bad one. There was no such thing as a terrorist Jewish organization calling for "death to Germany". There's nothing in the Jewish religion about subjugating the Gentiles. There's a huge difference between starting death camps to eliminate all Jews, and getting information from Muslim terrorists by any means necessary. Jews were not trying to install Talmudic law upon Gentiles in Germany. They did not insist on using public tax money to install special Jewish religious facilities in German airports. There was no event in Germany where Jews flew aircraft into German buildings followed by Hitler giving a speech about how Germany wasn't going to fight a war against Jews, but only certain Jewish violent extremists. Your ideas only work on those who have no knowledge of history.