Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He writes in National Review:
The McCain Amendment provides that no prisoner held by the Defense Department "shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation."
That manual expressly forbids any use of force, coercion or intimidation in conducting questioning, even if such tactics fall short of torture, even if the prisoner is a terrorist guilty of war crimes, and even in a matter of life-and-death — perhaps thousands of deaths.
Obviously, in the vast majority of circumstances, this provision of the McCain Amendment is also gratuitous moralizing. In general, though we are at war with terrorists against whom intelligence is our only defense, the military does not resort to forcible methods. To the contrary, gushing respect is our customary response to savagery, complete with halal meals, prayer rugs, and literally white-glove treatment for government-issued Korans.
But there are certain circumstances in which high-level al Qaeda operatives are captured in the throes of plotting massive strikes. There are certain circumstances in which such a terrorist might be able to tell us, right now, where bin Laden is, or Zarqawi, Zawahiri, and other leaders who are themselves weapons of mass destruction because they have the wherewithal to command massive strikes.
Understand: If we were to learn where one of those men was, we would attack that target and kill him, and we'd make no apologies for it. By the McCain logic, the killing is fine but the infliction on a terrorist of non-lethal discomfort to obtain the intelligence necessary to do the killing should subject the inflictor to prosecution. That's absurd.
