From right-wing nutjobs at NewsMax- John McCain: Torture Worked on Me

[Ian David]

With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
For the story behind the story...
Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2005 9:55 a.m. EST

John McCain: Torture Worked on Me

Sen. John McCain is leading the charge against so-called "torture" techniques allegedly used by U.S. interrogators, insisting that practices like sleep deprivation and withholding medical attention are not only brutal - they simply don't work to persuade terrorist suspects to give accurate information.

Nearly forty years ago, however - when McCain was held captive in a North Vietnamese prison camp - some of the same techniques were used on him. And - as McCain has publicly admitted at least twice - the torture worked!

In his 1999 autobiography, "Faith of My Fathers," McCain describes how he was severely injured when his plane was shot down over Hanoi - and how his North Vietnamese interrogators used his injuries to extract information.


<snip>

McCain was taken to an interrogation room and ordered to sign a document confessing to war crimes. "I signed it," he recalled. "It was in their language, and spoke about black crimes, and other generalities."

"I had learned what we all learned over there," McCain said. "Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine."

That McCain broke under torture doesn't make him any less of an American hero. But it does prove he's wrong to claim that harsh interrogation techniques simply don't work.

Link deliberately left out.

[unblock]

1. now THAT's gotta be good for troop morale.

yo, terrorists! torture works on americans!

i swear, there's just no end to the evil of these banana republicans.

[Canuckistanian]

2. And what was the result?

A signature on a piece of paper that meant nothing other than propaganda value.

And what about the ones who are tortured who don't know anything? That's right, they'll lie. They'll tell their captors all kinds of misleading information just to get the pain to stop. Thay'll turn in their innocent neighbors who don't know anything either. And so on, and so on...

In the end, it turns out to be a big waste of intelligence effort and the released prisoner becomes the next insurgent. Along with all his brothers, friends and neighbors.

A self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Ian David]

5. I'd just turn on my Republican neighbors. n/t

[Renegade Six]

3. Isn't that exactly why it doesn't work?

Gotta love the logic of retards

[feelthebreeze]

4. Being forced to sign a piece of propaganda hardly constitutes a

basis for saying that torture works. It is the unreliable nature of information that you receive from the tortured victim that is being questioned. Let alone the disgusting and immoral action of torture itself. Yes, it is possible to break men, to make them suffer so they will do and say anything you demand, but what does that give you? Only a gift that only a sadist could enjoy. Torture is not a plan, it is a ploy used by a group when they have no other alternatives to enforcing their will upon others. I am forced to question your own stance on this ghastly and unforgivable practice, that we put upon our fellow humans. They do not work and they are unacceptable for America and our moral base.

[merwin]

6. McCain also gave them the lineup of a football team.

Breaking News:
According to the CIA, Willian "Refrigerator" Perry is the new leader of Al Qaeda.

[MsUnderstood]

7. what this story says

is that once a person reaches the breaking point they will say or do anything to stop the torture.

Torture does not provoke one to give accurate information, it provokes one to give ANY information--specially what the tormentors want to hear.

Torture does not work. McCain signed whatever he was given. It could have been a recipe for chicken dumplings-he didn't care.

[Webster Green]

8. This example proves the exact opposite....

McCain signed an admission that he was a war criminal in order to end his torture.

It proves that you can get anyone to break, and say what you want them to say, but it doesn't prove that torture yields accurate information.

[DinahMoeHum]

9. Sorry, but "black crimes and other generalities" ain't military info

or intelligence or "accurate information".

And nearly all the American POW literature of the time say that despite torture and coerced signings of "confessions", little, if any military intelligence was gleaned from it.

Sorry, but the NewsMax story doesn't prove that torture yielded any viable information - it only proved that everybody has a breaking point.

:smoke:

[Ian David]

10. And that John Hanoi McCain is a cowardly pussy and a traitor to America.

Isn't that what Fearless Leader George W. Bush said when he was running against McCain in the primaries?