THE BLOOD ON JOHN MCCAIN’S HANDS

Do you think Al Qaeda terrorists are planning another attack on the United States?

You'd have to have a two-digit IQ to believe they aren't.  Yet if Senate Democrats and a handful of renegade Republicans have their way, we will never learn the details of what is being planned through interrogating captured al Qaeda suspects.

Thanks to the Supreme Court's breathtaking overreach in the Hamdan case this summer, which extended Geneva Convention protections to terrorists (who clearly are not entitled to them), our ability to obtain information from captured terrorists is in jeopardy.

The problem is this provision of Article 3, which forbids: "Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment."

But what constitutes "humiliating and degrading treatment?"  CIA interrogators — who reportedly have been buying private insurance to protect them from lawsuits — want to know what is permissible for them to do, and what isn't.

Captured al Qaeda operatives have given us a great deal of useful information.  But they haven't provided it out of the kindness of their hearts. 

The CIA is understandably vague about the interrogation techniques it seeks to protect, but according to Human Rights Watch, they are:

"Induced hypothermia; forcing suspects to stand for long periods; sleep deprivation; a technique called 'the attention grab' where a suspect's shirt is forcefully seized; the 'attention slap,' or open hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage; the 'belly slap," and sound and light manipulation."

The New York Times reported that Abu Zubaydah, the first al Qaeda bigwig captured after 9/11, was induced to talk by being kept in a freezing cell, and being forced to listen to loud rock music.

John McCain and the other senators who are blocking efforts to clarify the law argue that permitting the CIA to use the coercive techniques described above would open the door to other countries torturing U.S. prisoners.  They argue further that any attempt to "amend" Article 3 would bring worldwide condemnation of the U.S.

The first argument is ludicrous; the second irrelevant.

The last time an enemy of the United States accorded our POWs the treatment they're supposed to get under the Geneva Conventions was during World War II, which is something Sen. McCain, who was tortured by the North Vietnamese, ought to know. 

Consider the treatment of our last two POWs, taken by al Qaeda in Iraq this summer.  One was beheaded after his chest was cut open.  The other was brutally beaten before he was killed. 

To prepare them for torture if captured, American pilots and special forces soldiers undergo harsher treatment in SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) training than the CIA currently employs against al Qaeda terrorists.

It is true the French won't like us if we use coercive interrogation techniques.  But the French won't like us even if we renounce them.  And why do Sen. McCain & Co. think French opinion should take precedence over the safety of Americans?

We can be sure that Al Qaeda terrorists are plotting  to kill as many of us as he can.  If they succeed, give much of the credit to those in the Senate who want to cripple our ability to listen in on terrorist communications; to track terror financing, and to interrogate terror suspects.  American blood will be on John McCain's hands.