Perhaps the only way to spread this round the country is to let Rush, all the other talking head Republican conservatives and the Internet Bloggers know the true meaning of the word RINO.

I used that same picture of the Rhino featuring McCain as the RINO when I was hammering him on the blogs about his signature Acts, McCain/Feingold, McCain/Kennedy, McCAin/Lieberman, etcetara.

Warner, I spent about thirty years in the Marine Corps and was always out of pocket somewhere when it came time to vote. The outcome of any election did not have much affect on our jobs anyway, so most of us decided we were Independents with a conservative Republican bent. Feels kinda strange being an Independent RINO.

As far as I am aware, the Germany and Italy in World War II followed international law in treating American prisoners of war, although I think the Germans were less kind to Russian POWs.

It is possible that torture "works"–no one here said otherwise. As for waterboarding, I respectfully disagree when you say it is not torture. It is not merely "uncomfortable"–it makes its victim think he is going to die. There are all kinds of acts that are considered torture under American and international law that don't even rise to the level of "uncomfortable" (which I take to mean causing physical discomfort).

When their candidate or ideology fails to secure their party’s nomination for President, WINOs withdraw from the electoral process rather than choose the best candidate among the two running for office. At this point, rather than not voting, some WINOs decide to cast their votes for a third party candidate who has no chance of winning, thus becoming WIMPS (Waste It Making Protest Statements).

Whether WINO’s or WIMPS, it’s a losing electoral strategy. But there is one up-side. President Hillary Clinton or President Barak Obama thank you for your principled stand, because when they set about ruining the country with their anti-conservative agenda, you’ll be able to hold your head high and say “At least I kept John McCain from becoming president!”

Not being privy to the information that our military and intelligence people are, I couldn't say that everybody at Guantanamo is guilty. Given the type of suspects that are generally held there, I would wager that there's not a lot of rosy cheeked Boy Scouts who have been railroaded locked up there though. And like you mentioned, I think the people getting waterboarded are probably the type of guys that don't leave much in the way of ambiguity.

Read the memo from the Office of Legal Counsel–an executive branch agency. It contains an excellent section on what constitutes "severe suffering." You'll note from subsection 2 that "severe mental suffering" must be "prolonged," so I don't think the statute is so broad as to make simply frightening a prisoner "torture."

"This isn’t something that gets done on a daily basis to civilians off the street who are minding their own business."

I certainly hope not, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. But since armies and intelligence agencies, like police or anyone else, do occassionally make mistakes, I don't think we can rule out the possibility that somebody in Gitmo is innocent (and I realize that not everyone at that facility is waterboarded).

Just to be clear, I do not for a minute believe that our refusal to torture terrorists will be met by terrorists with a similar refusal to torture Americans. I'm quite sure that regardless of what we do, terrorists will continue to torture American captives. My position is that regardless of whether terrorists torture Americans, Americans should not torture terrorists.

Put it this way: if the worst treatment McCain received at the hands of the Vietnamese was "mock execution", I don't think he'd garner the sympathy that motivates him to mention his service in Vietnam every third sentence like he does today. I don't know if I would equate waterboarding with deliberately deceiving someone into thinking you are going to shoot them in the head either. In wartime situations, or when dealing with terrorists or illegal, non-uniformed combatants, I don't find either of those activities troubling enough to warrant a 20 year prison sentence, as prescribed in the US code you cited.

From what I read of the US code you cited, "severe suffering" is left somewhat ambiguous, but could basically be construed as just about any physical or non-physical act that so much as frightens someone. Scaring people during the course of interrogations should not put one at risk of being a "torturer" – even scaring them about their mortality. Using the language I read in the code, most high-pressure police interrogations could be construed as "torture".

Obviously we have fundamentally different viewpoints on this issue, but I don't have any moral outrage at waterboarding people captured during wartime. This isn't something that gets done on a daily basis to civilians off the street who are minding their own business.