Rumsfeld, Pentagon frantically trying to skirt new McCain law on torture.
The Pentagon is now trying to undermine the new McCain bill on torture by frantically rewriting the Army Field Manual to define what is legal and what is not legal. McCain's spokesman hinted that this would undermine negotiations between the White House and McCain on what is permissible and what is not. The problem is the selective interpretation of morals and vaules that the Pentagon is trying to get away with. Details of what would be permitted and what would not be would be classified. But why should we trust the Pentagon to define what is permissible and what is not when they have bungled that trust to such a degree.
Torture is such a black and white issue that it should not even be a matter of discussion whether or not it is right or wrong. But the problem is that we have a government who is incapable of telling the difference between right and wrong. They label people as terrorists so that by their twisted logic it is OK to torture them because they are somehow less than human. But I'll bet none of the architects of this policy would advocate the treatment of their own dogs or cats like this.
Like a kid in class trying to see what they can and can't get away with, the Pentagon is now testing McCain to see what they can get away with before he goes off on them. Will McCain let this new twisting of right and wrong go unchallenged? We know that McCain, despite the nasty swift-boating of his campaign by Bush in 2000 has still followed Bush around like a lapdog ever since. I wonder if Bush has decided that McCain, at some point, will not have the guts to sustain a fight with the White House over this issue. Or maybe that they can wring concessions out of McCain elsewhere and make him sacrifice his princples on some other area.
This reminds me of a fable about a horse and man who have a common enemy in a stag who always takes water away from their well. So, the man and horse agree to work together to kill the stag. But what the man hasn't told the horse is that he then intends to capture him and use him for his own purposes. Given their blatant changing of the rules, I wonder if the Bush administration sees themselves as the man and McCain as the horse and think they can play him like a violin.