by Captain Frogbert Sun Aug 10, 2008 at 08:42:36 PM PDT

John McCain loves to remind us that he was a POW and was tortured...

...yet he consistently fails to remind us that he broke under torture.

He loves to tell the story about how he lied to his captors about his squadron mates' names, giving the names of some football team's front line (which football team seems to be a matter of political expediency, however) -- and besides, what exactly were the Viet Cong going to do with the names of his squadron mates anyway? Drop by their homes and kill them? Why would they need -- or want -- that information from him? Not to suggest that McCain's story is a convenient, politically-motivated LIE mind you.

But what we KNOW McCain told his captors is the locations of US bases: information that got lots of Americans killed. Oh yeah and McCain made propaganda films for the enemy. Can you imagine the media feeding frenzy had John Kerry been captured and made propaganda films for the enemy? It would be an automatic disqualifier for the office of dog catcher much less President. We'd never have heard the end of it. John Kerry making propaganda films for the Viet Cong would have been a disqualifier for any Democrat anywhere ever to be president according to the usual media suspects. But McCain gets a pass. McCain always gets a pass.

Of course McCain tells the football story to show how tough he was. To imply that he didn't break and a lot of people are fooled by it ("He stayed strong..." warbles country star John Rich in his teenage crush ode to his hero, McCain, Raising McCain). But McCain broke. He gave in. He was weak. He Broke and gave up militarily important information to the enemy. He Broke.

Many conservatives, living in their Jack Bauer-defined world, just "KNOW" that real men don't break under torture. Instead, they make snide remarks, bleed and sweat in photogenically pleasing ways and spit in their captor's faces. They take it. They tough it out. AMERICAN HEROES DON'T BREAK! EVER. Hell, even in our comedies Americans don't break (see Richard Pryor in Some Kind of Hero: he signs his confession Jack Meoff. Ha Ha.)

But John McCain broke. He broke. That kind of ruins the entire conservative meme doesn't it? McCain broke under torture.

Now the truth is, everyone breaks under torture. It happens every time. There are things a human being just can't endure (Hell, even McCain admits he reached his breaking point: he admits he broke. Tell that to your conservative neighbor; he'll scream that it's a damned librul lie). But everyone breaks. Let's stop pretending that McCain didn't, huh? He broke. It's the simple truth.

We should remind people of this every time some McCain supporter goes on and on about how McCain's POW "credentials" somehow make him uniquely qualified for president because he was so tough and strong. Maybe it will sink in to the conservatives out there that their hero worship is based on a juvenile fantasy, not reality.

John McCain broke under torture.

and the press loves him, so just ... give it up.

So torture works?

Well,you know,the Vietnamese were not up to McCain's superior "post-back-to-the-stone-age-bo­mbing" tactics....

Ask the asswipe,He'll never for one minute say that perhaps we should have considered what the Vietnamese were thinking or desired......."HE" knew better!

So What? There is only so much pain a body and mind can endure! That is not fault I have a problem with. He served honorably.

Today in 2008. He is just too old for the demands of the presidency.

I don't even care if he was a POW...there I said it.

Wow.

Wouldn't that be proof that torture does indeed work?

Hi, Captain Frogbert here...

I'm actually kind of pissed that Hitman took my entire post and copied it over here without asking for permission or telling me.

This is what I get for Googling myself.


As to the people who ask if this means that torture works, the answer is yes and no: torture will get you to tell people anything they want to hear even if what they want to hear is lies. The concept that "Torture does not work" is not that you can't force people to tell you things, it's that you can never know without other non-torture acquired corroboration, that what you "learned" from your victim was true or not. And of course the non-torture related corroboration makes the torture unnecessary.

Torture exists because conservatives in every culture just love to do it, not because it is an effective method for gathering information. And oh yes, torture is also good for terrorizing your own people which is why the Mafia is so into it.

Curious....el

in the top post. Even though hitman copied your post and gave you credit...that's still a no no? I thought it was OK as long as you credited the author. It was a good, informative post and we thank hitman for bringing it to us and to you for writing it.