McCain on Torture

Yesterday, I posted on Rudy Giuliani's tough torture talk in Davenport, Iowa, in which he definitionally removed waterboarding and sleep deprivation from torture. John McCain ripostes today:

"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,” McCain told The New York Times in an interview.

McCain, who is vying for the GOP nomination, said his fellow presidential candidates: "They should know what it (waterboarding) is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture.”

McCain has a record on torture: he wanted to outlaw (as in, criminally penalize members of the armed services and intelligence agencies for) torture in December 2005. But he went well beyond Giuliani in providing protections for terrorists:

By establishing the Army Field Manual as the uniform standard for interrogation of detainees, the McCain amendment bans not just the worst forms of torture, but also tactics that have been labeled “torture light” such as lengthy sleep deprivation, the use of painful stress positions, removal of clothing, exposure to extremely uncomfortable cell temperatures, and the use of scenarios designed to convince the detainee that death or severely painful consequences are imminent.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 03:05 PM

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