The McCain Amendment

I've been trying to formulate an argument in my head on this piece of garbage legislation, but I started by posting a comment on someone else's blog on the subject. This is the essence. Expect to see this edited later.

The problem isn't outlawing torture, it's the vagueness. Is it severe mental suffering to scare a terrorist? How about making them think that you are putting menstrual blood on them? How about making them listen to Christina Aguilerra? 'N Sync? Is name calling "severe mental suffering?" Does it differ depending on what religion the terrorist claims to be? Is it off limits to have a woman question a terrorist who considers them unclean? Is it ok to use a dog to scare a prisoner? Is sleep deprivation out of bounds? It isn't for training our own military. Is humiliation out of bounds?

It is really easy to be "against torture." I want the people who support this measure to say exactly what they think is acceptable and what isn't. The advocates of this bill need to be specific on the rules for the people we are giving the difficult task of gathering intelligence. It is cowardly and irresponsible to make them GUESS what is allowed and what isn't and sentence them to prison if they guess wrong... Funny thing is, if you DO get specific on what is and what isn't allowed, leftists say you wrote a "torture memo" allowing people to be tortured.

This isn't about "who we are." It's about what we value more, the comfort of terrorists or protecting innocent lives from terrorists. Anyone who supports these rules should never again complain about intelligence failures.