Well folks in the immortal words of Popeye, "That's all I can stands and I can't stands no more."  I've just about had all I can take of people crucifying John McCain for his stand against waterboarding.  I even heard one cretin yesterday on Medved accuse McCain of providing aid and comfort to the enemy by opposing the use of waterboarding.  Perhaps it's time to clear the air and provide a little clarity here.
     There are few people who can speak to this subject with more credibility than McCain.  To be blunt, he's been there done that and got the t-shirt so to speak.  Given that, I'm sure that McCain and all of his colleagues from the Hanoi Hilton can say without reservation that torture is not a credible source of useful intelligence.  If you would like to ponder the semantics as to whether or not waterboarding is torture, I'll let you do that on your own time.  The point is, McCain and his colleagues were routinely subjected to far worse than waterboarding and quickly mastered the tactic of saying just enough to make the beatings stop.  This seldom if ever resulted in even huge propoganda victories for the North Vietnamese, let alone any really useful intelligence.  I've read many official debriefs of POWs from Vietnam and more than a few books relating their experiences during interrogation.  Here are a few examples of the end result of the torture they endured.  Interrogator's Objective:  Beat Prisoner X until he gives you the names of his squadron commander and several squadron mates.  Summary of Events:  Prisoner X remains silent through several hours of horrible beatings and torture.  Prisoner X then attempts to redirect or minimize the importance of any names he provides by saying somethng to the effect of "I could give you names but it would be useless as most of these guys were due to rotate back to the states when I first got to the squadron."  This in effect could have ended the beatings,  If it didn't work out that way, it at least may have given Prisoner X time to think of a better story.  The beatings continued until Prisoner X (apparently a die hard Cheesehead) confessed that the squadron Commander's name was Bart Star.  When pressed for more names of his squadron mates, Prisoner X reluctantly surrendered the names of the rest of the starting line-up for the Green Bay Packers.  Had Prisoner X given up anything of value?  No.  Did the interrogators know that?  No.  Did the beatings stop?  Yes.  Score 1 for Prisoner X.  There are countless other examples:  propoganda photos that looked great except for the fact that the prisoner had both hands between his legs with both middle fingers extended;  film footage of a prisoner robotically (and in semi-broken English)  confessing to heinous war crimes against innocent women and children while blinking out the word "TORTURE" in morse code all the while.  The point here is that beating on someone will only make them surrender enough to make the beatings stop.  If a lie will work then so be it.  Our own historical experience should bear out that waterboarding and even more aggessive or heinous forms of torture are just poor ways to get useful intelligence out of anyone.  John McCain knows and has lived this and is against waterboarding as a result.
     Moreover, few would argue that we have the most professional military on the planet bar-none.  Most career military people (myself, and McCain included)  place alot of pride on this level of professionalism.  When we resort to such tactics as waterboarding and other forms of torture, in effect we compromise our principles as a professional fighting force and a nation of compassionate idealogues.  In effect, we surrender everything that makes us better than the brutally barbaric thugs that we oppose.   If we cannot or will not treat POWs in accordance with the Geneva Convention, we become everything we ourselves hate and have spilled blood defending against.  In the final analysis, compromising these principles is just not worth the lies and deception we would probably get through the use of torture.  Our military is better than that, our country is better than that and our principles are more valuable than that.  Think about it.