In defense of John McCain

While I have a diminished level of respect for John McCain after his sharp turn to the right following his defeat in the 2008 presidential election, the man still has more fortitude than many in his party.  In 2008 while campaigning I thought very highly of McCain; he had principles.  I blame his current condition not on losing the presidential election but on the Tea Party who mounted an unsuccessful primary challenge for his seat during the midterm elections.  This is what the Tea Party does, drives sensible Republicans so far to the right that they become distasteful.

But McCain has not completely sold out.  In fact just today, Faux News reported that he was lambasted by Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum.  Why? Because as Santorum says, "he (McCain) doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works."

That's quite a thing to say about man who literally cannot lift his arms above his head after spending more than five years being tortured by the North Vietnamese. You would think that even if he disagreed with the effectiveness of torture, Santorum would have enough respect not to explain it to John McCain.

McCain for his part asserted that torture had nothing to do with the intelligence gathering that went into finding Osama bin Laden.  Whatever the case, I'm proud that McCain showed the same courage now in protesting torture as he did when running for president.  While all of his Republican peers glow when talking about pushing Muslims's heads under water, McCain stands up for doing the right thing, or at least not doing the wrong thing.

The war on terror is a war in the sense that the fighting on the ground is happening with guns and bombs.  However it's not going to be won with those guns and bombs.  We killed bin Laden, but the venom he spewed is still out there and no bomb can kill an idea.  Torturing captives lends credence to the jihadist mythology.  There is a fine line to be drawn, because to "win" (which is an ambiguous term in this sense) we do have to kill the bad guys, the Osama bin Ladens of the world.  But more importantly we have to kill the ideas and that only happens when we prove them wrong.  Allowing bin Laden to live would have meant more unacceptable deaths, but allowing his message to flourish will result in a great number of unacceptable deaths.  Bullets killed bin Laden, actions will kill his ideas.  One of those actions is ceasing to torture enemy combatants.

John McCain knows what it means to be tortured, and I respect him for standing up against it still.  It would be nice if Rick Santorum came to the same conclusion although I hope he does not have to suffer similarly to arrive there.