Limits on CIA Interrogations

FOXNews.com - Congress Pushes Limits on CIA Interrogations in Face of Threatened Bush Veto - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum:

"Republican presidential contender Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, voted against the measure Wednesday."

WOW!! I had expected McCain to vote FOR this. I wonder what his reasons are. I support limiting what the CIA can do, but maybe not this much.

The CIA should have a window of very harsh methods (including water boarding) for getting current information quickly. But once that window has passed, there are less and less reasons to continue to use the harsh methods. To me "torture" is the POINTLESS inflicting of pain and suffering to punish someone, or to "get even" or just to be cruel or to get a false confession. If there is reasonable reason to believe the person has information that can stop an eminent attack, or lead to the capture of other terrorist, then I say just about anything goes. But if they hold out for days or a week or two then...

A - The info he has is old anyways.
B - He may start giving false info just to stop the interrogation
C - He may not really know anything (or anything more than he already told)
D - He may just be strong willed and have "beaten us".

There comes a time when the risk of option 'D' becomes small enough and the chances of A,B or C (or others) being true become large enough that we must stop the harsh techniques. They have become pointless and therefore I would consider continuing them to be "Torture". He could still be subjected to other less harsh, more long term, techniques but eventually he should become "just a prisoner" and simply held.

Until trial of course.

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By the way, the argument that Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller made that "Retaliation is the way of the world. What we do to others, they will do to us — but worse," is just silly. Terrorist have no limits on what they are willing to do. What we do with our prisoners may be used in propaganda, but will in no way make terrorist attack us more or in "worse" ways. Nor will it make them treat people they kidnap or capture "worse". It shows Mr Rockefeller doesn't know what he's talking about, and is just using this as his own propaganda against President Bush.