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December 16, 2005
John McCain Knows the Pain of Torture, Mr. Bush Doesn't
U.S. President George W. Bush's capitulation to Arizona Senator John McCain on the question of banning the use of torture by CIA agents and U.S. military personnel trying to extract information from Muslim prisoners of war is highly significant. The ban would apply at home and abroad.
As Washington Post staff writer Peter Baker noted in a December 16, 2005 article:
Nearly five months ago, President Bush issued a formal threat to veto legislation barring torture, and for the past five months he has been trying to find a way to avoid doing just that. The price: giving Senator. John McCain (R-Ariz.) the upper hand."Once again the awkward, freighted Bush-McCain relationship with all its history of rivalry and resentment took center stage in American politics yesterday [December 15, 2005], Baker added, "as the second-place finisher in the 2000 Republican presidential primaries forced the first-place finisher to swallow something he once opposed."
Mr. Bush really had no choice but to capitulate. How could he veto a torture bill by a man who spent five and a half years as a prisoner in Hanoi and was frequently tortured by the North Vietnamese? John McCain knows the pain of torture, Mr. Bush doesn't. He fought in a war, Mr. Bush didn't. McCain narrowly escaped death aboard the USS Forrestall when a bomb accidental launched and hit his A-4 Skyhawk. It "exploded underneath the plane, starting a major fire which killed 134 sailors and nearly threatened to destroy the ship," according to Wikipedia. Mr. Bush has had no such experience. McCain has earned the right to deferential treatment on this issue.
Posted by Munir Umrani at December 16, 2005 02:15 AM
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