He went from SAC to NSA later, but the training and indoctrination he received were exactly the same as I received and he is flat out lying about this. The rules were clear and unambiguous about torture and intercepts. There was no “gray area”, and he knows it.

The basic rules for classification haven’t changed, although Nixon, Carter, Clinton, and the Shrubbery have modified the wording slightly, and changed the people who can stamp something “Top Secret”, the basic order has been the same since Eisenhower.

He is lying, he knows it, and it really pisses me off because he wears an Air Force uniform and was in NSA. We don’t play that crap.

I went through SERE and a couple of other “schools” that made it very clear that this stuff was torture. I was in for the Cold War and Vietnam, so we weren’t playing games, this was training we expected to need, and too many, like McCain, did need. This wasn’t a “game”. The threat of al Qaeda is nothing compared to the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces.