I no longer believe that John McCain was tortured in Vietnam

[devilgrrl]

What led me to believe this is his silence in regarding torture on the part of the US military in Iraq. I do believe that he was seriously injured when his plane crashed, as for the other stuff... I'm not buying it anymore.

Flame away, I don't care.

[tk2kewl]

1. I think he is just permanently dammaged by it

that is why he doesn't fight torture and why he laid down for the rove mud slinging. He shrinks from torture.

[devilgrrl]

3. You'd think he would devote his time fighting against it...

but nooooooo!!!!!

He was prisoner of war, he was seriously injured when his plan crashed... maybe the food sucked too but don't think he was as abused as he claims.

[FreedomAngel82]

14. I do see where you're coming from

It's a wonder why he's supporting torture even when our own military is getting kidnapped and everything. :\ You would think he'd fight a little harder since it hits close to home. I just don't get it. Maybe he's being blackmailed or something. I really don't know what to think.

[knowbody0]

24. you think like i do

[Modem Butterfly]

2. It's actually really well documented, both by us and the NVA

But I agree, his silence on the torture issue is astounding.

[devilgrrl]

5. What's the NVA?

???

[InternalDialogue]

6. North Vietnamese n/t

[hlthe2b]

7. North Vietnamese Army

[hlthe2b]

9. Yes... he truly is an enigma....

I still sort of subscribe to his being blackmailed by the Bushies*....maybe Kerry too. But, for a REPUG, the leash is much shorter. :shrug:

[DoYouEverWonder]

18. No one doubts that McCain was a POW

the question is how was he treated during his captivity?

He reminds me of a man I knew when I was young. I lived in an apartment building were some of the tenants were survivors of the Nazi camps. The man who owned the building was a survivor but everyone hated him. Turned out that his game was to be a goody goody with the SS and to tell on people and stuff like that. In return he kept his own ass alive and lived better than the rest. That's who McCain reminds me of.

[Modem Butterfly]

23. That's exactly what he was accused of by the Bushies in 2000

They implied that his adopted daughter, who is Malaysian, I believe, was actually his love child from his POW/Collaborator days (patently untrue, since she was only about fourteen in 2000, but hurtful nonetheless).

His torture was exactly what I was referring to as having been well-documented.

[MADem]

25. I thought she was Bangladeshi, and disabled n/t

[Modem Butterfly]

28. You may be right

Seeing the way they treated him in 2000, it was galling and puzzling to me how he could campaign for that man in 2004, particularly as he was "McCaining" another vet.

[indepat]

4. Considering his father was CINCPAC during some of his captivity,

it would not be hard to imagine his being singled out.

[Desertrose]

8. Have a lot of questions about McCain, I just don't care about the answers

I mean I don't care enough to bother getting answers...if there are any...

Can't say I would disagree about the torture...don't really know...Seems that if he was tortured, he has a short memory then. (A lifetime should not be enough to forget being tortured....I would imagine)

I hate what he has done to the Navajo in their own land...McCain sucks. period.


edit clarity

[MADem]

10. Sorry, I cannot buy your subject line

He is so fucked up he cannot even put his arms over his head, or even extend them fully--one won't even go up level with the deck at shoulder height. He has scars that you can't see unless you are next to him in a locker room. And his abusive behavior to his staff while he was at OLA was classic "PTSD"--so some of his scars don't show at all to the casual observer.

I have no issues with your challenge of his posture on current military policies and procedures, but making a blanket statement like that is, to put it kindly, intemperate, not fact-based, and does not advance our cause.

FWIW, This is not a "flame" -- it is a response.

[EVDebs]

11. Serious torture by fellow Repubs in South Carolina n/t

[ET Awful]

12. Well, by the Gonzales standards, he wasn't tortured

He didn't lose any limbs or have organ failure, so it wasn't torture according to Alberto.

[Bouncy Ball]

13. I'm not going to start slandering the man

and saying he wasn't tortured, because it reminds me too much of what the smearie fucks did to Kerry.

BUT, I do find his silence on the Abu Ghraib torture to be very troubling.

Maybe he's not the same man he was back then.

[whistle]

15. So how did he get those terrible scares on his neck and face?

....You do make a good point. One would logically think that being a victim of torture, would make a person an advocate of not using torture on others, but hey, "the mind is a terrible thing" as another republican draft dodger, Dan Quayle was quoted as saying. Maybe McCain has become just as jaded about torture and the rest of these insane repukes. Coming back from an experience such as that, there is really no way to predict what a person will think or believe. He threw in his lot with the republican party for crying out loud. He has stayed with that party through all of the crap, including the abuse he received from Bush in the 2000 primaries. That says a lot about the man, both his strengths and his flaws.

[elehhhhna]

16. They way he let GW kick him , he seems to LIKE being tortured.

Stockholm Syndrome, anyone?

[Egalitariat]

17. Were the alleged acts against John McCain

as bad as the ones at Abu Ghraib?

[enigmatic]

19. Sorry, but that's a big steaming pile

I lived in Arizona for a number of years and met McCain more than once; it's pretty obvious just from meeting him that to this day he's still scarred both mentally and physically from what happened to him. And there are piles of documents supporting his torture.

You may not like the guy for what he's doing now (and I haven't liked him for it, either), but he's not making this up.

[DURHAM D]

20. Why does everyone think that if you had been tortured you

would automatically be against it. Torture could have the opposite affect.

Also, back in the 60's we were dancing over the line ourselves on the Geneva conventions and our enemies were doing the same, and no doubt more. I think the whole discussion about rendition(or whatever it is called) and torture is just a dance. We, and everyone else, lies about the realities of war and peace.

[Jara sang]

21. Maybe you can give me some advice about my tattoo, Devilgrrl

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=3238734&mesg_id=3238734

[Ravy]

22. When there was talk of him being Kerry's VP, I heard

a republican talking head on TV say that McCain was the only foreign held captive on record to have gained weight in his captivity.

[Snotcicles]

26. Neutering, had the same effect on my dog. P.S.

I started to put n/t but you may have thought that meant NO TESTICLES. puns puns puns

[capriccio]

27. How perfect...

Quote a Republican to advance this smear. Yeah, we're getting there folks. Pretty soon we'll be just like them.

[Lerkfish]

29. wrong. he was tortured, and wrong, he DID speak out about Abu Ghraib

in the beginning...then the BFEE twisted his arm and he stopped.

so, for a brief moment, there was some integrity, apparently, and then it evaporated.

[R. A. Fuqua]

30. It is a known fact that people

who were abused as children are more likely to BECOME abusers themselves when they become adults.

I don't know why you would assume that someone who experienced something bad would automatically become an advocate against that bad thing.

Althought it seems logical--it is an obvious fallacy in logic.

It is the RARE person (the exception to the rule) who can work through their abuse to the extent that they will advocate against it. True--those rare individuals will often get a Lifetime movie about them--so we tend to think they are more common than they actually are--but it just doesn't always happen that way in real life.

Usually victims tend to (wrongly) believe that they "deserved" the abuse--so they do not feel a need to advocate against such abuse happening to others. (this is a way to justify the pain in their own minds--and a way to live through it.)

[ScreamingMeemie]

31. Horse hockey. Of course he was...there was also a time when he was

a moderate. What they have on him that keeps him in line and lets George Bush do those gross face in armpit hugs with him is anybody's guess. The man has been silenced. It's obvious. Read some of his earlier bills and contrast them to today. :hi:

[stray cat]

32. That is the kind of logic displayed by FOX viewers

Don't present reality just give me opinions - facts are not nearly as important as my uninformed opinion.