John McCain Quotes
This question [torture] is not about our enemies; it is about us. We need not risk our national honor to prevail in any war.
He was arguing that even if torture might provide useful intelligence not otherwise obtainable, it is not necessary in order for us to succeed in our objectives. Ironically, the military interrogation rules prohibited torture in conformity with US law and treaties but the CIA ignored those restrictions and secretly tortured a number of victims in the War on Terror until their actions became public and they too were required, by executive order to follow the military interrogation guidelines.
John McCain, U. S. Senator (Republican, AZ), Republican Presidential Nominee, Senate Speech, December 9, 2014
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The Senate was debating a law to make torture of foreigners and captives illegal under all circumstances. Vice President Cheney was very strongly opposed wanting an exception made for the CIA.
It is surprising that these ideas would come from one of the most autocratic powerful monarch in the world at the time. However there were many very liberal influences on her from Europe. This set of proposals she even sent to Voltaire to get his feedback and criticism. As late as 2006 the American President was reluctant to outlaw torture for terroristsand the Vice President actually argued for its retention as an interrogation technique. Over 300 years earlier the autocrat of Russia argued against it.
He was referring to the police interrogation methods that Turkey had used in the past but was in the process of reforming.
There were however several instances of torture being used. The administration used the term “enhanced interrogation” for waterboarding and other acts that the US has previously punished Americans for using. The George W. Bush administration actually had a team of their lawyers in the Justice Department write a memo to uniquely define torture so as not to include the torture techniques that were used as “enhanced interrogation”.
Chelsea Elizabeth Manning
During the 2006 War on Terror, the George W. Bush Administration established secret prisons in friendly countries where suspected terrorists could be housed and questioned without regard to the American laws and regulations—or even Presidential directives about torture. The prisons were on the soil and under the jurisdiction of foreign countries whose laws were not as respectful of human rights and the rule of law as ours. Therefore the administration could deny that the U. S. was responsible for what occurred even though we secretly transported the suspects to the secret prisons and American agents participated in their “interrogation.”
This was untrue. The CIA used several forms of torture on high value detainees. The torture was psychological and physical. Even the FBI had agents who observed CIA interrogations and complained to their supervisors. For cover, the George W. Bush administration, got 3 Justice Department Attorneys to write a secret memo defining certain types of torture as “enhanced interrogation”. Water Boarding, for which American soldiers had been court martialed and convicted for torture then became enhanced interrogation, and was used on a few terrorists. Because of the rigged Justice Department memo, the CIA claimed that they did not torture people. Another thing the CIA did was to turn over enemy to the intelligence services of third countries like Egypt, where torture was used commonly with no regard for the Geneva convention or other human rights provision. CIA agents then watched and asked questions but they claimed that they did not torture which was in some sense literally true.
At the time CIA apologists for the torture they carried out with the facilitation of the Justice Department often justified the torture because they claimed that it worked. Critics rose to the bait and argued that proposition as there was much evidence that it did not, and nothing was learned that had not been obtained without torture. However, Cole argues that that was the wrong issue. Torture was outlawed whether it worked or not. The United States under Ronald Reagan signed the treaty and the Senate ratified it. Torture is wrong whether or not it works.
John Sidney McCain III was an American politician, statesman and United States Navy officer who served as a United States Senator for Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives and was the Republican nominee for president of the United States in the 2008 election, which he lost to Barack Obama.
