Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has stepped up to respond to John McCain’s recent denouncing of both waterboarding and the effort to claim that our torture program led to the killing of Bin Laden. Santorum told an interview that McCain, a torture survivor, just doesn’t understand interrogation and then gave a frightening defense of torture that would have made Pol Pot blush.
Santorum articulates his version of Dr. Strangelove’s “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Torture.”
Here is the exchange:
Q: Now did the bin Laden killing cause you to hope that the enhanced interrogation debate returns center stage about whether or not, and when such techniques ought to be used?
RS: Well, not only that, but the first thing that should happen, Hugh, was that the President of the United States should have stepped forward and said we are going to stop this, well, potential prosecution of those within the intelligence community who were involved in the enhanced interrogation program. That should have been step one, going to Eric Holder and saying enough is enough, we’re not doing this anymore. We need to give these guys medals, not prosecute them. Number two, he should have stepped forward and said look, I was wrong, the enhanced interrogation program did work, it did produce my greatest foreign policy success. And I’m going to admit when I was wrong, and we’re going to look at how we’re going to redeploy this under obviously different rules and regulations, since of course the Obama administration told the enemy what we were doing in the previous enhanced interrogation programs.Q: Now your former colleague, John McCain, said look, there’s no record, there’s no evidence here that these methods actually led to the capture or the killing of bin Laden. Do you disagree with that? Or do you think he’s got an argument?
RS: I don’t, everything I’ve read shows that we would not have gotten this information as to who this man was if it had not been gotten information from people who were subject to enhanced interrogation. And so this idea that we didn’t ask that question while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was being waterboarded, he doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works. I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative. And that’s when we got this information. And one thing led to another, and led to another, and that’s how we ended up with bin Laden. That seems to be clear from all the information I read. Maybe McCain has better information than I do, but from what I’ve seen, it seems pretty clear that but for these cooperative witnesses who were cooperative as a result of enhanced interrogations, we would not have gotten bin Laden.
So Santorum believes that torture is now the “first thing” that we should do with detainees and that we should embrace a practice defined as a war crime under treaties that we signed and enforced against others.
Santorum simply repeats the false assertion that, over the course of over 180 torture sessions, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave up the name of the courier that led to Bin Laden. It is not enough that the Director of the CIA denied that fact or that, under international law, it does not matter if torture works — it is still a war crime.
I am pretty sure McCain “understand[s] how enhanced interrogation works” from a unique perspective. Santorum was a toddler when McCain was being worked over in Vietnam.
Santorum’s new expertise on torture is wrapped up in the simplest terms: “I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative.” Wow, that is insightful. I am not sure how McCain missed it. “You break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative.” While Santorum bills himself as the choice of the faithful for the White House, he offered the most amoral defense of torture that entirely ignores decades of struggle against war crimes. It is entirely consequentialist view of torture: if it works, it must be good.
The greatest irony is that Obama’s cynical calculus on torture has produced no positive returns. He has blocked any investigation or prosecution of Americans for torture but is still be accused of prosecuting CIA employees rather than “giving them medals.”
I am not sure where this is heading but it is not a good direction. Now, Gingrich and others will have to move even further to the right of Santorum. Certainly, no one can be to the left on the torture issue. Next we will hear Santorum does understand torture because he has not called for public torture events. Once you cross the moral Rubicon and embrace torture, there is a world of amoral opportunities.
Source: Washington Post
Jonathan Turley
Swarthmore,
I think he is smarter than Bush II, but is even crazier.
Swarthmore,
The Bulls sucked tonight. We need Korver to find his 3point shot soon.
rafflaw, Too bad the Bulls lost tonight. Still hoping for a Mavs – Bulls final.
rafflaw, He is no crazier than Bush.
Swarthmore,
Perry is not a viable candidate. He is so crazy that Obama would eat him up.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/paging-rick-perry-how-a-southerner-could-sweep-to-the-g-o-p-nomination/
If George “Macaca” Allen wins, it will be a dash for the bottom as to who is the dumbest member of the Senate. Personally, I like Allen (God forbid he wins) by a nose over Rick “Frothy Mix” Santorum. Rand “Teabagger” Paul should be in second or third place.
Swarthmore mom,
Thanks for the information.
George Allen is running again. He is tied in the polls. If he wins, the republicans will probably take over the senate.
Bette Noir,
Love me some “Time Bandits”.
“Evil: If I were creating the world I wouldn’t mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o’clock, Day One!
[zaps one of his minions accidentally, minion screams]
Evil: Sorry.
[. . .]
Evil: Oh, Robert, Benson! I feel the power of evil coursing through my veins, filling every corner of my being with the desire to do wrong! I feel so bad, Benson!
Benson: Good! Good!
Evil: Yes, it is good, for this is the worst kind of badness that I’m feeling!”
Who knew that Rick Should Be In A Sanitarium could do such a precise David Warner impersonation.
Frank, you are right. That was George Allen who had the macaca moment. Sometimes it is hard to tell them apart.
OS – “macaca” came from the bozo in Virginia, not Santorum. But he is an idiot of the first rank completely capable of that same sort of stupidity.
rafflaw Just heard Rick Perry might run if Daniels does not get in.
Santorum is a religious fanatic who lost his last election by a landslide and we should listen to him about anything? I agree with others here that maybe he should try this waterboarding thing out. By the way Mr. Santorum, how Christian is it to torture anyone for anything??
Rick Santorum is a new-age gnostic. He channels information from who-knows-where, like the 30% reduction i n U.S. population caused by abortion, the “increase” in abortions (caused by the decrease, one guesses), the “90% media elite” who voted for Obama, and now the special knowledge of torture.
Kevin Ferris, a conservative columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed Santorum on his alternative-to-Obama agenda, but failed to ask the key question. Arrogant One, how do you know your known unknowns?
I’m very fearful. Obama was an anti-torture braggart, but no one is going to be held accountable de facto. Torture is the new American normal.
I love the part where Santorum says we need to CHANGE the torture routine. No more Mr. Nice Knife.
The frothy mixture has a true tin ear on social issues. He has demonstrated his racist tendencies in the past, such as that “Macaca” crack. In his office photos, he had all that confederate memorabilia in the background.
Based on some of the things he has said, he simply comes across as not only being socially tone deaf, he does not seem to be all that smart.
Santorum is spreading a frothy mixture of . . . well, lets just say BS and chickenhawk fantasy on this issue.
It constantly amazes me that these yahoos who claim to respect the troop have so few qualms about pissing on their records. W on McCain, Gore & Kerry, Santorum here. These childish cowards are unfit for civilized society let alone public office.
S. Liberal said: [I don’t have a whole lot of respect for McCain, but I certainly respect him for his service and what he had to endure while staying at the Hanoi Hilton.]
Actually the fact the McCain’s still able to spew his reactionary bile is a testament to the humanity of the Vietnamese people for if some other country were reigning bombs down upon our cities and we managed to shoot down one of their planes the parachuting pilots would be landing on pitchforks.
Ah Santorum, victim of one of the greatest internet pranks ever. Sure it’s not safe for work, and childish, and actually pretty crude, but I can’t help but giggle every time I think about people googling his last name.