McCAIN TRIES TO SELL COMMON SENSE TO 'REDNECK AMERICA'

By Rev. Jim Purcell

A lot of Americans, many of them NASCAR fans, seem enthralled with the idea of the U.S. Government torturing prisoners. Like when they watch some "Monster Truck Show" on television, they want to get excited that something big and stupid is taking place, in my opinion.

However, not everything can be solved with the phrase "Nuke 'em til they glow" or something similar. Some things shouldn't be left to the less educated or sane among the American people.

Most recently, Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain came out publicly faulting the CIA and Bush Administration for the operation of the agency's Detainee and Interrogation Program operated between 2001-2006.

Sen. McCain is a well-known 'hawk' in the Senate, who has been staunch in his belief that America's recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were necessary for the nation's security interests.

However, McCain, a former prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, made it clear he did not abide torturing detainees. During the war, McCain was a U.S. Navy aviator who was shot down behind enemy lines.

He rightly noted that not only would a tortured prisoner tell their interrogators everything they wanted to hear, but would tell them anything they wanted to hear. And, that outcome destroyed whatever purpose real 'interrogation' held.

I want to support the senator in what he said, because it is important. He probably has more access than everyday Americans to the full 6,000-page report on the CIA program, which was reduced to a 525-page executive summary

As a former intelligence analyst for the U.S. Army myself, during the 1980s, I do know a little something about interrogation priorities. And, it doesn't take a wizard to figure out that obtaining real, useable intelligence data is imperative within the interrogation process. Well, that wasn't achieved by the agency, and this "enhanced interrogation methods" was a lot of horse dump that wasted a lot of people's time and did nothing but lower the nation to the level of terrorists and pigs when it indulged in this behavior, which is patently against the Geneva and Hague Conventions.

Yet, when I posted this on Facebook, what I received back was a slew of people, mostly Right Wingers, who said they "disagree" with Sen. McCain and the U.S. should torture terrorists. Well, that problem occurs because America doesn't offer a thorough public education.

The purpose of an interrogation is not to torture someone. Its purpose is to get information people can use to help identify the enemy's mission, enemies, timing for operations, troops used in operations and terrain the bad guys occupy or want. Having someone screaming anything anyone wants to hear does nothing to achieve those goals.

In fact, interrogation is not a sentence. Interrogation is an investigative process. If someone, say some redneck from Appalachia, wanted to torture someone. It would be concurrent to a sentence of some kind and not during an initial investigative process. The redneck wants to torture terrorists because somewhere in his dimly lit thinking processes he thinks this is a great idea. However, lo and behold! There is the Geneva and Hague Conventions, which this nation has been a signatory of since 1907.

The Geneva and Hague Conventions are the benchmark for enlightened nations and the violation of them relegates the perpetrators to the title of "war criminal" and the nation that supports that as "rogue" or "evil." I, for one, would rather live in United States that was intended and crafted by the Founding Fathers, not the weekly viewers of "Duck Dynasty."

Still, after reading this, many people in this nation will say, 'See, he wants to take it easy on terrorists while Americans die! He's nothing but a traitor!' I have no response to that, I only have English to work with here, and that isn't a popular subject of study in our American "Educational" System anymore.

Personally, I believe these advocates of torture are ignorant beyond all imagining. They are the "Tea Party" folks who would destroy our economy, have us depart the U.N. and become a nation of evil. They misunderstand nearly every intention of the Founding Fathers, in my opinion, and in the war between God and the Devil on this world, they are not on the side of the angels. In short, they are an embarrassment beyond all reckoning and thank God those of similar views (e.g. Fox celebrity Sarah Palin) are not in command of this nation.

(Rev. Jim Purcell is a former U.S. Army Intelligence Analyst with the G-2, XVIII Airborne Corps, Counter-Intelligence Analysis Branch, among other assignments. He is a graduate of the New York Theological Seminary and was an award-winning journalist for many years, who, among other publications, wrote for both the Newark Star-Ledger and Jersey Journal.)