Pentagon has one-upped McCain, and simply rewritten the manual

[kpete]

Pentagon has one-upped McCain, and simply rewritten the manual:

The Army has approved a new, classified set of interrogation methods that may complicate negotiations over legislation proposed by Senator John McCain to bar cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees in American custody, military officials said Tuesday.

The techniques are included in a 10-page classified addendum to a new Army field manual that was forwarded this week to Stephen A. Cambone, the under secretary of defense for intelligence policy, for final approval, they said.

The addendum provides dozens of examples and goes into exacting detail on what procedures may or may not be used, and in what circumstances. Army interrogators have never had a set of such specific guidelines that would help teach them how to walk right up to the line between legal and illegal interrogations.

The political fall-out from this move is sure to be significant. The New York Times notes that McCain will likely be “furious” with the changes, and an unnamed Pentagon official is quoted, “This is a stick in McCain’s eye. It goes right up to the edge. He’s not going to be comfortable with this.”

The idea that we have a “Vice President for Torture” now appears quaint. What we really have is an entire administration, openly and unapologetically for torture.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/14/torture-rewrite/
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/14/politics/14detain.html?ei=5094&en=a7c8f18a1a4771c9&hp=&ex=1134536400&partner=AOL&pagewanted=print

[Kagemusha]

1. Breaking news: Sen. McCain's head heard exploding in Wash. DC

...Well you'd think it would.

[tanyev]

2. If cozying up to the Bush team in 2004 after their vicious lies about

him in 2000 didn't explode his head, I don't think anything will.

[Mass]

3. McCain knew that and it is what he was asking for

The manual was being rewritten while they were debating that in the Senate and this point was clearly said.

We all have to be clear: what McCain was asking for was not that torture was forbidden, but that the soldiers knew what was allowed or forbidden. All the rest was spin for McCain's glory.

All the administration was objecting was the fact that they could not invent new ways to interrogate prisonners on the fly.

A lot of people here and elsewhere refuse to ask themselves what the motives of people are (same thing goes for Murtha and others). No surprise that they eventually get surprised.

[Lindsay]

4. That stick in McCain's eye has fingerprints from

the whole damned maladministration all over it.

Destroying America is their passion. Sticking it to individuals is just a fringe benefit.

[Robert Cooper]

5. This is a side-dish...the main course is the CIA...

....remember Cheney is demanding an exemption for the -CIA-, not the Pentagon.

You got to keep your eye on the pea to know which cup it's under ;-)

[The2ndWheel]

6. Haven't heard from Cambone in a while

As if it makes a difference if there are laws written or not. We have tortured, do torture, and will always torture.

[trotsky]

7. Tough shit, McCain.

You, of all people in the Senate, should be in front of any and every camera decrying how our country treats its prisoners like the Viet Cong treated you.

You, of all people in the Senate (next to John Kerry I suppose), should be aware of the tactics and morals of this criminal gang of thugs in charge of everything.

You brought this on yourself by not fighting back but instead licking the boots of your master Bush.

[Finder]

8. McCain is one of the founders of PNAC....

yet nobody speaks out because he sometimes says what we want to hear.

He and Bill Kristol and the rest of the neocons are very buddy buddy.



New Citizenship Project (also New Citizenship Project, Inc.) is a non-profit organization funded by large right-wing foundations. Founded in 1994, NCP initiated the Project for the New American Century, one of the key behind-the-scenes architects of the Bush administration's foreign policy. According to his senate biography, John McCain served as a president of NCP, "an organization created to promote greater civic participation in our national life."<1> (http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=Newscenter.ViewPressRelease&Content_id=684)

NCP shares the same address and suite as PNAC. According to NCP's listing in The Right Guide, NCP and the Philanthropy Roundtable share the same phone number. The Philanthropy Roundtable (http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/)'s office is on the same floor of the same office building as PNAC and NCP.


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=New_Citizenship_Project