The Good John McCain Surfaces

Every so often the good John McCain reappears. His recent Senate speech on torture and the hunt for Osama bin Laden is the best thing I’ve seen from him in lord knows how long. It deserves to be read in full but some of the highlights include:

[There has been a] debate over whether the so-called, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ of enemy prisoners, including waterboarding, were instrumental in locating bin Laden, and whether they are necessary and justifiable means for securing valuable information that might help prevent future terrorist attacks against us and our allies and lead to the capture or killing of those who would perpetrate them.  Or are they, and should they be, prohibited by our conscience and laws as torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

I believe some of these practices – especially waterboarding, which is a mock execution, and thus to me, indisputably torture – are and should be prohibited in a nation that is exceptional in its defense and advocacy of human rights.