The release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” — i.e. torture — predictably caused shock waves throughout the country and created additional division and hardening of positions along party lines.
One notable exception was Senator John McCain.
Hate him or love him, agree with him or disagree with him on virtually every political issue, McCain knows what torture is.
On the floor of the Senate, the former Vietnam Prisoner of War today disagreed with most of his GOP colleagues by not only defending the report but by also endorsing its findings.
Referring to his own torture during a five-and-a-half-year captivity in Vietnam, McCain argued:
I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it. I know they will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say if they believe it will stop their suffering.
McCain added “the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies, our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights.”
On the other hand, former Vice President Dick Cheney offered a spirited defense of the Central Intelligence Agency and, according to Andy Borowitz, called upon the nations of the world to “once and for all ban the despicable and heinous practice of publishing torture reports.”
But others were more insightful.
“Like many Americans, I was shocked and disgusted by the Senate Intelligence Committee’s publication of a torture report today,” Cheney said in a prepared statement. “The transparency and honesty found in this report represent a gross violation of our nation’s values.”
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“The publication of torture reports is a crime against all of us,” he added. “Not just those of us who have tortured in the past, but every one of us who might want to torture in the future.”
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Saying that the Senate’s “horrifying publication” had inspired him to act, he vowed, “As long as I have air to breathe, I will do everything in my power to wipe out the scourge of torture reports from the face of the Earth.”
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Cheney concluded his statement by calling for an international conference on the issue of torture reports. “I ask all the great nations of the world to stand up, expose the horrible practice of publishing torture reports, and say, ‘This is not who we are,’ ” Cheney said.
Not as satirical, but nevertheless just as powerful, are emotional comments made by Fox News’ “Outnumbered’s” co-host Andrea Tantaros who accused Democrats of politicizing torture.
“The Bush administration did what the American public wanted, and that was do whatever it takes to keep us safe. These terror tactics have been stopped because as a country we decided we are better than this,” she said. “It’s not about democracy now. No, no. It’s about politics.”
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Tantaros then exploded and asserted several times that the U.S. is simply “awesome.”
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“The United States of America is awesome, we are awesome,” she said. “We’ve closed the book on it, and we’ve stopped doing it. And the reason they want to have this discussion is not to show how awesome we are. This administration wants to have this discussion to show us how we’re not awesome.”
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“They apologized for this country, they don’t like this country, they want us to look bad. And all this does is have our enemies laughing at us, that we are having this debate again,” Tantaros continued.
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She later added that the Obama administration believes “naively that if we can just shame ourselves and convince the world how horrible we are, and put us on a moral equivalency with all these other countries then maybe they will stop beheading Americans and putting our heads on sticks.”
See for yourself: watch the video via Raw Story. Tantaros’ remarks begin at 3:01.
