April 30, 2007
McCain on Fox
John McCain was interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday for the first half of the show (transcript here), and he provided countless examples of why he'll never get the GOP nomination, starting with this one:
WALLACE: How would you fight the War on Terror differently than it's being fought now?
J. MCCAIN: I would probably announce the closing of Guantanamo Bay. I would move those detainees to Fort Leavenworth. I would announce we will not torture anyone.
I would announce that climate change is a big issue, because we've got some image problems in the world. I think that we've got to understand — diplomatic, intelligence-wise.
Clearly, in the area of, quote, "propaganda," in the area of the war of ideas, we are not winning as much as — well, in some ways we are behind.
Al-Jazeera and others maybe, in the view of some — my view — may sometimes do a better job than we are.
At the end of the day, it's how people make up their minds as to whether they want to embrace our values, our standards, our ideals, or whether they want to go the path of radical Islamic extremism, which is an affront to everything we stand for and believe in.
Close Gitmo? Bring the brigands to Kansas? Has his election-addled brain forgotten that doing so will -- thanks to the feckless U.S. Supreme Court -- bring these jihadis into our criminal justice system? Does McCain realize that we'll have to give these men, who deserve nothing more than a short drop and a quick stop, the full protections of the U.S. Constitution, the same as any other domestic crook?
But that's to be expected, because the real problem is our P.R. crisis, 'cause it's our fault that the rest of the world hates us, and all we need to do is start treating our enemies a little better and everything will be copacetic.
That last bit was priceless, as if the jihadis want to kill us because of our ineffective publicity, as if they just don't know enough about us -- that to know U.S. is to love U.S.
For Pete's sake, the 9-11 terrorists had lived in the West, knew the West, and loathed the West (although the movies, booze and strippers were alright).
Next on display was the legendary McCain arrogance, courtesy of his new-found categorical rejection of torture.
WALLACE: Senator, you talked about torture. Former CIA Director Tenet now says that the intelligence that they got from harsh interrogation techniques against some of these big Al Qaida types, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the intelligence they got from them using, reportedly, things like water-boarding, extreme temperatures, was more valuable than all the other CIA and FBI programs.
Were you wrong? I mean, this is the CIA, former CIA director, saying this. Were you wrong to limit what CIA interrogators could do?
J. MCCAIN: A man I admire more than anyone else, General Jack Vessey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, battlefield commission, told me once — he said, "John, any intelligence information we might gain through the use of torture could never, ever counterbalance the image that it does — the damage that it does to our image in the world."
I agree with him. Look at the war in Algeria. Look, the fact is if you torture someone, they're going to tell you anything they think you want to know. It is an affront to everything we stand for and believe in.
It's interesting to me that every retired military officer, whether it be Colin Powell or whether it be former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — everybody who's been in war doesn't want to torture people and think that it's the wrong thing to do. And history shows that.
We cannot torture people and maintain our moral superiority in the world.
WALLACE: But when...
J. MCCAIN: And that's a fact.
WALLACE: But when George Tenet says...
J. MCCAIN: I don't care what George Tenet says. I know what's right. I know what's morally right as far as America's behavior.
WALLACE: But if I may, sir...
J. MCCAIN: Yes, sir.
WALLACE: ... when George Tenet says we saved live through some of these techniques...
J. MCCAIN: I don't accept it. I don't accept that fundamental thesis, because it's never worked throughout history.
Did you get the part when McCain was told that lives were saved, and he responded, "I don't accept it. I don't accept that fundamental thesis, because it's never worked throughout history."
Problem is, McCain has acknowledged the need for coercive interrogation during extraordinary circumstances, because it works
Those who argue the necessity of some abuses raise an important dilemma as their most compelling rationale: the ticking-time-bomb scenario. What do we do if we capture a terrorist who we have sound reasons to believe possesses specific knowledge of an imminent terrorist attack?
In such an urgent and rare instance, an interrogator might well try extreme measures to extract information that could save lives. Should he do so, and thereby save an American city or prevent another 9/11, authorities and the public would surely take this into account when judging his actions and recognize the extremely dire situation which he confronted.
But I don't believe this scenario requires us to write into law an exception to our treaty and moral obligations that would permit cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. To carve out legal exemptions to this basic principle of human rights risks opening the door to abuse as a matter of course, rather than a standard violated truly in extremis.
It is far better to embrace a standard that might be violated in extraordinary circumstances than to lower our standards to accommodate a remote contingency, confusing personnel in the field and sending precisely the wrong message abroad about America's purposes and practices.
National Review's Andy McCarthy points out the fatuousness of McCain's outraged response to Wallace.
So, confronted by the do-or-die starkness of a ticking-bomb, McCain acknowledged in 2005 that it "might well" be necessary to use "extreme measures," and that so doing might in fact "save an American city or prevent another 9/11." Was his bottom-line position that coercive interrogation doesn't work? Of course not. It was that such interrogation might very well work but that it would be a mistake to write an exception permitting it into our law because the exception would be abused.
That is a perfectly respectable position — there is a serious (though beneath-the-radar) debate about whether the best way to minimize the use of coercion is (a) to regulate it tightly and prosecute all violations, or (b) categorically ban it and assume that interrogators would know enough to ignore the ban in true emergencies. But, it is just plain bluster to argue, as McCain continues to insist, that coercion never works and he doesn't care what anyone else says. As his answer on the ticking-bomb demonstrates, even he doesn't believe that.
[...]
Sometimes the information will, indeed, be false — just as criminals who testify in exchange for leniency sometimes provide false information because they know the value of their cooperation to prosecutors (which determines how much leniency they get) calls for them to inculpate other people.
But very often, the information from such criminals proves to be true. That, of course, is why we permit the government to offer incentives (like generous plea deals, money, relocation, etc.) to get people to cooperate. Our experience tells us that just because people have an incentive to lie — even a powerful one — does not mean the information they provide will be false. Often it is true.
That is not an argument for widely permitting coercive interrogation; but it does underscore that McCain and others should stop making the silly claim that coercion never works.
Color me unimpressed by the whole interview. Read it yourself and see what you think.
Posted by Mike Lief at April 30, 2007 07:00 AM
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