Ron Paul is a Reagan Republican on Torture
Sen. John McCain is wrong about many things. The definition of torture is not one of them. A former prisoner of war who was tortured by the Viet Cong, McCain said in 2008: “Water boarding is torture… Under President Reagan we passed anti-torture acts… The Israelis do not use torture… and if we use torture then we cannot differentiate ourselves from the enemy.”
McCain’s citation of this aspect of the Reagan era was indeed one of the last times we prosecuted anyone for waterboarding in this country and it was through Reagan’s Department of Justice—which insisted that the practice was indeed torture. Again, Reagan’s DOJ explicitly defined waterboarding as “torture.”
With the exception of Jon Huntsman tonight, only Ron Paul maintains Reagan’s definition.
