Legal Commentary

What Do You Say Now, John McCain?

By Jack M. Balkin

The White House has now admitted that the United States has waterboarded, that President Bush believes the practice is not torture, and that it violates neither the anti-torture statute, the McCain Amendment (which you sponsored) nor the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (which you voted for).

Will you condemn the White House for its latest admission? Will you say to the President what you said to Rudy Giuliani back in October?

"All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot?s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today," Mr. McCain, who spent more than five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, said in a telephone interview.

Of presidential candidates like Mr. Giuliani, who say that they are unsure whether waterboarding is torture, Mr. McCain said: "They should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture."

And if that is so, Senator McCain, do you agree that the Administration is subject to criminal liability under the torture statute and the War Crimes statute? Do you agree that the United States, under the leadership of George W. Bush, has committed war crimes and has stated that it sees no obstacle to doing so again?

The country awaits your answer.

Full post as published by Balkinization on February 06, 2008 (boomark / email).