Thanks for posting Mark Levin's comments. He says so clearly what the problem is.
The media and other opponents of President Bush are hanging out the idea that American policy tolerates torture of captured enemies. This becomes "the big lie" = accepted truth.
The idea that "America is an oppressor nation" is taught in public schools from Grade 1 on - I'll give kindergarten a pass here - so the leap to believing that Rumsfeld, etc order detainees to be tortured becomes a believable concept.
That McCain says that there needs to be a law granting constitutional rights to people who operate outside all laws of civilized behavior, further adds to the concept that American troops need to be controlled from their bad behavior.
Iraqikurd, I understand how intimately you feel the word "torture" and respect your feelings, but please also try to understand what concretebob is saying: American Armed Forces Do Not Torture Detainees. Period.
For McCain to bring up this bill seems to say to the world that our troops do commit torture.
You're right on the money in post 82.
The takeover of our schools by the leftist victimologists and the takeover of the press by the "big lie" artists are deadly poisonous to our nation -- these are "the enemy within."
McCain is a stealth antagonist of Bush and is obviously grandstanding for his presidential run, using his own torture experiences as psychological warfare. It's beneath contempt; but he will do it anyway and the rest of the Republicans in the Senate are no help to the President. Why?
That said, no human system is perfect, and with the latest generations of young people raised to spit on our nation, on religious precepts and on morality in general, we can't rule out individual cases of torture that would happen if interrogators are given free rein. But there is no military or feudal tradition of torture such as those found in Vietnam, Indonesia, etc. The closest we came was the Salem witch trials in the 1600s, when we were still an English colony, not the American nation.
BUT
I have NOT been debating torture..or whether or not our troops engage in it.
I have been trying to explain that WE SHOULD NOT GRANT CONSTUTIONAL PROTECTIONS TO TERRORISTS...
The very same points Mark Levin stated in his piece.
I am all for giving whatever protections are required to the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan..LEGAL CITIZENS, willing to acknowledge that with those protections comes responsibility for actions.
Those people EARN the right to be protected.
Just as IK has earned the right to be protected.