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:
wikipedia:
- 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.
- 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.
Physicians for Human Rights
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(1) paragraph edited from wikipedia
James Marks & Mitt Romney prefer ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’
“I’d stick a knife in somebody’s thigh in a heartbeat.”
Earth to Romney: Two wrongs don’t make a right
Either Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney condones torture or he thinks putting a knife in someone’s thigh isn’t torture.
What a wicked man.
Greg Sargent reports for TPM that Republican Mitt Romney has named retired General James “Spider” Marks the new national security adviser for his presidential campaign. Marks “asserted in a 2005 interview that he would readily torture prisoners to save a soldier’s life or stop a terror bomb, saying: ‘I’d stick a knife in somebody’s thigh in a heartbeat.’ ”
From TPM:
In announcing the appointment of Marks, the Romney campaign put out a press release emphasizing his “more than three decades of experience in the intelligence field.” But according to CNN, Marks also is a teacher of “interrogation.” And as a CNN analyst, he elaborated on his views of torture on the network on November 8, 2005:
TOM FOREMAN (voice-over): If you could save the life of a soldier, rescue the hostage children; stop the next terrorist bomb by torturing a prisoner for information, would you do it?JAMES “SPIDER” MARKS, MAJOR GENERAL, U.S. ARMY (RET.): I’d stick a knife in somebody’s thigh in a heartbeat.
FOREMAN (on camera): Retired General “Spider” Marks, a CNN consultant, worked for U.S. Army Intelligence, teaching interrogation.
MARKS: The kinds of enemies we’re fighting have no sense of right or wrong. They will go to any depths to achieve their ends.
FOREMAN: Do we have to go with them?
MARKS: We don’t need to go with them. We need to preclude them from going there. And that might include some use of torture in order to prevent it.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Polls have shown that more than 60 percent of Americans think torture can sometimes be justified. But here is the catch. Experts, including General Marks, are convinced with the vast majority of prisoners, it just doesn’t work.
In addition to seeming to suggest that we should torture even though it doesn’t work in the “vast majority” of cases, Marks also added this later in the same broadcast:
FOREMAN: …So in your experience and in your view, torture as a policy should be against the law?MARKS: True.
FOREMAN: And yet, we might still have to use it.
MARKS: True.
That would appear to be an explicit endorsement of illegal torture.
Contacted by Election Central, Romney spokesman Kevin Madden declined to comment on Marks’ assertions or say whether Governor Romney agreed with them. Madden did, however, say that Romney opposes torture, though he also confirmed that Romney supports the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Madden declined to specify what techniques in particular Romney was referring to.
At the GOP debate in May, Romney surprised a lot of people — and drew applause from his audience — when he said: “Some people have said, we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo.”
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has hired a man who would use al-Qaeda-like torture methods “in a heartbeat.”
On May 24, 2007 the Smoking Gun reported the U.S. military discovered metal tools and drawings of torture methods in an al-Qaeda safe house. Disturbing even if it was a false flag setup. While sticking a knife in someone’s thigh wasn’t specifically mentioned, some of the methods include drilling hands, eye removal, blowtorch to skin, and binding and beating.
Is this what we want from an American President? Aren’t we better than this? Isn’t humanity better than this? Mitt Romney must be crazy along with anyone seriously considering voting for him.
Fear is powerful, powerful, powerful, and Republicans have worked tirelessly over the last decade to instill fear in the American electorate. Those who believe even for a second that our country should torture people have been indoctrinated into a craven nationalism.
Procuring intelligence should be extremely difficult, partially due to the ethical methods we should employ. Sadly we must be more vulnerable to outside attacks to be the best society we can be. It is the price we pay for our humanity. At the same time the forbiddance of torture (instead of just saying we do) would also make us less despised in the world, curbing potential violence.
America’s greatest trait is our potential for greatness. America’s greatest weakness is the belief we can use any method available to get there.
As Marks said, “The kinds of enemies we’re fighting have no sense of right or wrong. They will go to any depths to achieve their ends.” Apparently so will Marks and Romney.
By stating that “we ought to double Guantanamo” Romney seeks to expand a dishonorable symbol of American depravity. Hiring James Marks doesn’t help either.
The combined wisdom of Wikipedia writes that “President Bush signed memorandum stating that no Taleban or al-Qa’ida detainee will qualify as a prisoner of war and that Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions will not apply to them either. Common Article 3 requires fair trial standards and prohibits torture, cruelty, and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”
That means that Romney thinks torture, cruelty, and outrages upon personal dignity are okay. But wait, Romney spokesperson Kevin Madden said the Republican doesn’t condone torture. If that is true why would Romney want twice as many Americans interrogating twice as many people who are not protected by Article 3?
No matter how many times government officials say it, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ are gobbledegook semantics and what any reasonable person would consider torture, especially if it these ‘techniques’ were performed on you. Even the word ‘technique’ has a sterile, disarming quality to it. Wordplay and euphemism are the government’s forte.
In an American era of global disapproval and Republican-sanctioned torture, Mitt Romney displays a shallow depth of thought along with faulty, questionable judgment.
In one fell swoop Romney has plunged to the bottom of the list of those would could restore America’s standing in the world.
More on Mitt Romney
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