I don’t neccesarially approve of all Senator John McCain’s ideas, as evidenced recently via his many phone calls and letters directed at informing me as to how I should vote today in my state (which, by the way, is not AZ). Regardless, I am regularly impressed by what he doesn’t do, as opposed to what he does.
McCain should be applauded for going agaist the grain, even when the “grain” are Senators from his party, his party in general, or the President himself. It’s somewhat disheartening that I’m applauding a representative for sticking to their values as opposed to towing the party line, which is something all Senators should be expected to do. Sadly, these individuals are few and far between in politics, so they must be recognized.
Yes, but what’s all this have to do with IR? Well recently McCain introduced legislation to ban the use of torture by interrogators, and ammended it to the defence spending bill. This move was genious, in my opinion, because it is something that the President would find very diffucult to veto (unless he’d like to end the Iraq war a bit sooner than expected). The President maintains that “We do not torture”, but this seems contradictory to yesterday’s promise to veto any legislation that includes the ban.
There are many arguments both for and against the torture ban, the former more sensical and coherant that the latter, but the overwhelming argument to me is how this affects our image to the rest of the world. Our number one goal should be to salvage our image, since it is the predomanent thing which will prevent future acts of terrorism and improve relations with peoples and states worldwide. People will tolerate a progressive and forward-thinking world hegemon, but a bulley who doesn’t abide by it’s own rules will quickly be conspired against and attacked from all sides.
Even if this is defeated, the fact that this ammendment was overwhelmingly supported by members of the President’s own party should serve as a message to the rest of the world that Americans are concerned about the idea of torture, and about how our image is portrayed in general.