Senate gives Mukasey a pass
Watching U.S. Senators question Attorney General Michael Mukasey at the Justice Department Oversight session is infuriating. Not only does Mukasey refuse to directly answer any question, no matter how simple, the senators give him a pass. This is oversight malpractice.
When asked by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) of the Senate Judiciary Committee if the U.S. military is waterboarding or has waterboarded a person in the past, Attorney General Michael Mukasey just said “not that I’m aware of.”
Liar. Liar.
U.S. Soldiers in Vietnam waterboarding a suspect near Da Nang in 1968.
If a random blogger knows about U.S. military abuses in the past, how could any Attorneys General not know?
Mukasey is a failure as the top law officer in the U.S., and as a responsible U.S. citizen. He, more than any other, has the power to reign in the legal power to torture other people, and he not only refuses, but refuses to answer basic questions about it.
Watch the testimony on fast forward and look at how many times he looks down or looks away from the questioner, each time he is being asked a direct question about something that makes him uncomfortable. Even when Sen. Kennedy (D-Mass) asked Mukasey that if Mukasey himself was waterboarded, would he consider it torture, Mukasey could only say “It would feel like torture.”
Dispicable. Dispicable.
Still want the Republicans in power?
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images: http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2007/0710/mukasey_1029.jpg, http://alittlereality.blogspot.com/2007/10/is-waterboarding-torture.html
Rachel Maddow, Alan Keys & Chris Matthews
Quote of the day
Waterboarding appears to have entered American lexicon as the debate over the torture technique increases in public discourse.
This evening on MSNBC’s Hardball, host Chris Matthews responded strongly to Rachael Maddow’s (Air America) assertion that the star of the Des Moines Register GOP debate was former ambassador Alan Keys:
“I’d like to waterboard you right now.” -Chris Matthews to Rachael Maddow
Matthews is great, but it appears he needs to tone his tongue. Just a few days ago he said:
“If I was black I’d vote for Barack [Obama].”
Ug.
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http://farm1.static.flickr.com/187/475184830_1785e7bfe6.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/ywywvc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Keyes
“It’s like swimming”
On the Dec 11, 2007 episode of PBS’ Newshour, Republican Senator Kit Bond, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, compared waterboarding torture techniques to swimming strokes.
President Bush & Sen. Kit Bonds
GWEN IFILL: I just would like to — but do you think that waterboarding, as I described it, constitutes torture?
SEN. KIT BOND: There are different ways of doing it. It’s like swimming, freestyle, backstroke. The waterboarding could be used almost to define some of the techniques that our trainees are put through, but that’s beside the point.
I’m not sure what level of idiocy you have to achieve to before you can compare the finer techniques of torture to the breaststroke. All the evolution and advancement of humankind seems to go right out the window when you have a member of the United States Senate touting the nuances of torture as an excuse for the practice.
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/waterboardingswimming.flv[/flv]
Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) discussing waterboarding torture on Newshour.
A dip in the pool: Soldiers in Vietnam waterboarding a suspect near Da Nang in 1968.
Waterboarding is inexcusable. Period.
While acquiring information is vital to national security, the avenues in which we allow our government to procure that information must be cordoned by sensible ethics and the high-road of morality. The greatest obstacle in scavenging for and extracting information should not be the suspects and foreign entities themselves, but the banner of principles we bear through that process.
America cannot extol its humanity while acting inhuman.
I guess, however, for Republicans, they can.
If anything, Senator Bond should of just called it what it is: the Dead Man’s Float.
Swimmer’s last resort: Dead Man’s Float survival technique.
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More on Waterboarding, GOP
See also:
http://tinyurl.com/yqvh3v, http://tinyurl.com/yokuzg
http://www.re-lab.lv/error/images/waterboarding.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2eslft, http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/752/192569.JPG
http://www.wilderness-survival.net/figures/fig16-2.gif
http://www.wnbc.com/news/14522451/detail.html
Written on December 13, 2007 | Posted in
News,
waterboarding |
1 Comment
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:
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/torture.flv[/flv]
(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:
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/dogs.flv[/flv]
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.
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/dogs2.flv[/flv]
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.
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/torture2.flv[/flv]
Physicians for Human Rights
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http://members.aol.com/lupinaccim/waterboarding4.jpg
http://oneutah.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/waterboarding.jpg
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Waterboarding-Definition-Wikipedia24dec05a.jpg
http://www.sebimeyer.com/images/_wikipedia_en_5_54_AbuGhraibScandalHarmon55.jpg
http://blogs.abcnews.com/photos/uncategorized/waterboarding_nr.jpg
http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/images/051114mast_1_13166f_p198.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2l6ex6, http://www.agoravox.com/IMG/vignettes/130_h_torture.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/38457m
http://www.nydailynews.com/img/2007/09/18/amd_bush.jpg
(1) paragraph edited from wikipedia
