Open Letter to Senator McCain

[Jack Rabbit]

And yes, I really sent it to him.

Senator:

I am very disappointed in your decision to support Mr. Bush's torture and war crimes immunity bill.

I'm sure you are aware that only an act of Congress can make waterboarding into something other than torture. A form of this "harsh intettogation technique" was used during the middle ages to punish scolds and to "persuade" witches to confess. It seems that torture -- I will continue to use the term, regardless of what laws Congress passes -- was used to persuade a detainee on by the name of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi to confess to all he knew about Saddam's biochemical arsenal. Mr. al-Libi was in Egypt under "extraordinary rendition" -- a practice explicitly prohibited by the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Witchcraft, Saddam's biochemical arsenal and Santa's workshop on the North Pole have a great deal in common, don't they? It seems that torture played a role in the confession of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen and technical worker who was under "extraodinary rendition" in Syria, to confess that he trained with al Qaida in Afghanistan. In fact, Mr. Arar has never been to Afghanistan, accodrding to a recent report released by the Canadian government on the affair.

Tales of Mr. al-Libi, Mr. Arar and a few thousand witches should tell us something about torture. That is: Torture is very good at getting the subject to say what the interrogator wants to hear, but not so good at getting the subject to tell the interrogator what he needs to know.

But why should I tell you this, Senator? You know this far better than I do. I believe while you were in a North Vietnamese prison camp you became acquainted with a guard the POWs called Rabbit because he had buck teeth and long ears and another they nicknamed Straps and Bars after his favorite -- pardon me -- harsh interrogation technique. I have only read about these monsters in human flesh. You have experienced them.

I used to admirer you, Senator. They call you a maverick Republican and I fancy myself a maverick leftist. I don't follow the party line. Although I think he should stand trial as a war criminal, I cringe when I hear Mr. Bush compared to Hitler. I am very skeptical of cheap conspiracy theories, while I know many people who are all too eager to assert them as fact. I love mavericks of all stripes. I think we mavericks ought to get together and form a club, except that tonight I'm not sure you belong in it.

Even this week I wrote a defense of you on a liberal/progressive/leftist website against skeptics and cynics who were sure you'd turn, but I said "No, McCain knows what torture is about. He was a POW in North Vietnam. He was tortured himslef." Well, they were right and I was wrong. I am very disappointed.

How could you? How could you serve this nation in uniform and suffer so much for it and then betray all it stands for in an afternoon? How could you betray not only that, but your own past?

I don't know what power Mr. Bush holds over you, Senator, that you will forgive him the lies about you and insults to your family that Karl Rove spread in South Carolina in 2000 or that will make you shield that heinous man from prosecution for war crimes or to say that torture isn't torture when he orders it. But I know that whatever it is, I don't like it.