Ex-POW McCain denounces torture as U.S. policy
Judge Michael Mukasey seems to be well along the path to Senate confirmation as attorney general despite his refusal to declare waterboarding a form of torture.
But, campaigning in Iowa today, former POW John McCain says he intends to continue talking about the procedure, which involves placing a prisoner on his back, head down on an inverted board, covering his face with a wet towel and pouring water on him. It is said to produce the intense sensation of drowning.
At an Iowa Falls event, The Times' Aaron Zitner heard the Arizona senator criticize Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani for saying, in McCain's words, that waterboarding could be used under certain circumstances. "Now, my friends," McCain said in his familiar speech pattern, "waterboarding is torture . . . No mistake about that."
He also said, "We have to have the moral high ground," and said use of waterboarding hurts the United States' reputation worldwide. The procedure is said to have been used a handful of times on hardened Al Qaeda prisoners.
Later in a short news conference, McCain vowed to continue discussing the issue, which has the not coincidental side effect of underlining the candidate's military and war experience and six years of sacrifice as a prisoner. McCain and California Rep. Duncan Hunter are the only GOP candidates with wartime military experience.
Asked by one reporter about Giuliani mocking sleep deprivation as a harsh interrogation technique and comparing it to running for president, McCain referenced a fellow Vietnam POW who was chained to a stool for 10 days and then unchained for one day and then chained again for 10 more days, according to the senator.
"Ask him," McCain demanded, "if that has any relation to running for president."
-- Andrew Malcolm
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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Senator McCain is correct in that our government should not engage in torture of any kind.Waterboarding is a form of torture and should be banned.It is cruel and unusual punishment which is a violation of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.Our nation doesn't need to adopt the tactics of the Islamic terrorists to win the war on terror.I concur with John McCain that the U.S. should take the moral high ground in fighting the war on terror.I respect his defense of civilized behavior.It is one of the major reasons I plan to vote for Senator McCain for President.
Posted by: Shawn M. Hussey | November 06, 2007 at 03:53 PM