President Bush’s Mukasey Approves of Torture
President Bush and Attorneys General keep ‘waterboarding’ a symbol of America
Waterboarding is torture & Mukasey approves
During the October 18, 2007 confirmation hearing of Judge Mike Mukasey for U.S. Attorney General, Mukasey was asked “Is waterboarding constitutional?”
Before we get to his answer, keep in mind that Mukasey is nominated to be the head of the Justice Department, chief law enforcement officer of the United States government, and seventh in the United States presidential line of succession.
Also keep in mind that waterboarding is torture.
Who says it is torture? Let’s count the ways:
- In April 2006, in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez., more than 100 U.S. law professors stated unequivocally that waterboarding is torture, and is a criminal felony punishable under the U.S. federal criminal code.
- According to Republican United States Senator John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, waterboarding is “torture, no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank” and can damage the subject’s psyche “in ways that may never heal.” - Torture’s Terrible Toll, Newsweek, November 21, 2005. | http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10019179/site/newsweek/page/2/
- In its 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the U.S. Department of State formally recognizes “submersion of the head in water” as torture in its examination of Tunisia’s poor human rights record, U.S. Department of State (2005). “Tunisia“. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
- A former senior official in the directorate of operations is quoted (in full) as saying: “‘Of course it was torture. Try it and you’ll see.’” Another “former higher-up in the directorate of operations” said “‘Yes, it’s torture’”. At pp. 225-26, in Stephen Grey (2006). Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program. New York City: St. Martin’s Press.
- UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 1984 Signatories 74, Parties 136, As of 23 April 2004
- Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article 7, “Crimes against humanity” Definition of torture 7-2:e
- Endgame on Torture: Time to Call the Bluff Waterboarding has been torture for at least 500 years. All of us know that torture is going on.
- Former US President Jimmy Carter stated “The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law” and continued “I don’t think it…. I know it” in a CNN interview on October the 10th 2007
And just what would this torture look like? Let’s count the ways:
From boingboing:
The furor over waterboarding is _so_ 2006, but I just found a digital clip from an Dec. 18, 1858 Harper’s Weekly(?) article on the use of water torture in New York state prisons more than 150 years ago. The story centers on a prisoner killed by torture, and is illustrated with a drawing titled “The Negro Convict, More, Showered To Death.” Despite a datedly racist sentence (”Like most negros, he entertained a lively fear of cold.”), it’s a disturbing read.
But what’s most interesting is how it echos so many news stories from last year. Just before the article jumps to a second page — the New York Public Library only has the first page of the story — we find that prison officials, unbeknownst to the public, had been using water torture “as a means of coercing criminals into submission” for more than a decade. And that officials apparently started using water after other torture techniques — i.e. whipping — led to prisoner deaths and public outcry.
Link to New York Public Library Digital Image ID.
Painting of waterboarding from Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng Prison
That’s enough counting.
A month before his confirmation hearing at the September 17, 2007 press conference announcing his nomination for Attorney General, Mukasey stated”
“But the task of helping to protect our security, which the Justice Department shares with the rest of our government, is not the only task before us. The Justice Department must also protect the safety of our children, the commerce that assures our prosperity, and the rights and liberties that define us as a nation.”
With the rights and liberties that define our nation as a backdrop, let’s hear Mukasey’s answer:
(1) Now Mike Mukasey served for 18 years as a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and 1/3 of those years as Chief Judge. He graduated from Columbia University and Yale Law School. For 20 years he practiced law in the Big Apple and served for four years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the federal prosecutor’s office in which he worked with Rudolph Giuliani. You can’t tell me this guy wouldn’t be prepared for his hearing in which the question of waterboarding was unquestionably going to arise.
Michael Mukasey
Mukasey clearly chose not to answer the question, and in doing so continued the Bush policy of America torturing humans.
Congress is seriously going to confirm this guy? Where is the outcry? Just think of the outrage against football player Michael Vick who tortured dogs.
During the wake of Vick’s animal torture case, Robert Byrd, the longest running senator of 48 years, gave an emotional outcry against those who participate in dog fighting and the torture of animals. Excerpts:
Barbaric. Barbaric. Barbaric. Let that word resound from hill to hill,and from mountain to mountain, from valley to valley across this broad land. Barbaric. Barbaric. May God help those poor souls who’d be so cruel. Barbaric. Hear me! Barbaric.
The immortal Dante tells us: The Divine Justice reserves special places in Hell for certain categories of sinners. Maddam President I am confident that the hottest places in Hell are reserved for the souls of sick and brutal people who hold God’s creatures in such brutal and cruel contempt.
Some have already compared Michael Vick to George Bush.
By refusing to answer the waterboarding question at his congressional hearing, soon-to-be Attorney General Mike Mukasey has demonstrated he will continue to allow our government to torture humans.
Sen. Byrd is right.
“Barbaric.”
“Barbaric.”
Help end government sanctioned torture. Vote Democratic.
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(1) paragraph edited from wikipedia
