[lbo-talk] McCain was not tortured in Vietnam

[John Thornton]

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: John Thornton jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net
>
> This is nonsense.
> The evidence that McCain was tortured is at least as good and generally 
> better than the evidence accepted every day that others are tortured.
> If you doubt McCain was tortured then you must also doubt prisoners at 
> Guantanamo Bay were/are tortured.
>
>
> [WS:]  Obviously, none of us knows for sure one way or the other.  All I am saying that we have words of a US military man with presdidential ambition vs words of a Vietnamese ex-prison guard with unknown motives.  I personally see no reason to belive the former over the latter.  Moreover, it is quite reasonanble to believe that McCain had many good reasons to exaggerate his conditions in Vietnamese captivity - from exonerating his own "collaboration with the enemy" to providing propaganda fodder, and to casting himself in a war hero role.  
>
> What is more, I do not see how Vietnamese prison and Guantanamo are similar.  The Vietnememese kept known and clearly identified foreign soldiers who clealry crossed the borders of ther country to attack civilian and military targets.  It is a fact nobody can reasonably deny.  Guantanamo holds civlians captured in their native countries whom the US authorieties accuse - without any legal proof - of aiding "terrorists," again a very vague term, or posing a "threat" to vaguely defined "national security."  The Vietnamese had every internationally recognized right to keep the US soldiers as POW, but of course not to torture them.. However, whether they were actually tortured or merely subjected to harsh conditiions is often a matter of interpretation.  The US, by contrast, has no internatioally or even domestically recognized right to keep Guantanamo prisoners, yet they do depite US court orders.  That very fact constitutes torture, even if
>  there were no waterboarding, which US admitted using.
>
>  Wojtek 

Your misreading me. I'm not drawing any comparison between Guantanamo 
and Vietnamese prisons. I'm saying the evidence of torture coming out of 
such places is comparable.
McCain made his torture claim long before he had presidential 
aspirations so I don't see how that fact fits into the discussion.
If I find a prison guard at Guantanamo who claims no torture took place 
will that suffice as evidence for you that no torture took place there 
or are Vietnamese prison guards more likely to admit being complicit in 
human rights violations that Americans?
You're correct in that we cannot know with certainty but if you find 
McCain's claim implausible based on the available evidence then you are 
forced to use the same standard to invalidate MOST claims of torture. 
I'm not prepared to do that.
All plausible claims of torture should be considered valid absent 
absolutely compelling evidence to the contrary.

John Thornton