Wow...this is an amazing statement, even from Rick Santorum
"[E]verything 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, [John McCain] doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works. I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative," - Rick Santorum, on Hugh Hewitt's radio show.
Aside from the fact that Rick Santorum is wrong, there is little evidence that supports his contention, lets consider this tidbit:
[John McCain] doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works.
Umm..really? Are sure you about that? [I now invoke the terrible spirit of group sourced knowledge that is wikipedia].
In August 1968, a program of severe torture began on McCain.[45] He was subjected to rope bindings and repeated beatings every two hours, at the same time as he was suffering fromdysentery.[33][45] Further injuries led to the beginning of a suicide attempt, stopped by guards.[33]After four days, McCain made an anti-American propaganda "confession".[33] He has always felt that his statement was dishonorable, but as he later wrote, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine."[46][47] Many American POWs were tortured and maltreated in order to extract "confessions" and propaganda statements, with many enduring even longer and worse treatment;[48] virtually all of them eventually yielded something to their captors.[49] McCain subsequently received two to three beatings weekly because of his continued refusal to sign additional statements.[50]
Rope bindings are not just being tied up. It involves twisting someones limbs into horridly painful positions, inflicting excruciating pain. All of it done not to acquire information, but to extract a confession. A confession intended to break the spirit of the men who were tortured.
Look, I'm not a John McCain apologist, and he played his part in enabling the Bush torture program to proceed and avoid repurcussions. But to suggest that McCain doesn't know how enhanced interogation works after being a prisoner of war at the Hanoi Hilton is an astonishing statement.
