Posted on 01/17/2009 7:03:11 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
WASHINGTON: Just 14 months ago, at his confirmation hearing to become attorney general, Michael Mukasey frustrated and angered some senators by refusing to state that waterboarding, the near-drowning technique used on three prisoners by the CIA, is in fact torture.
At his confirmation hearing over the past week, Eric Holder, the attorney general-designate, did not hesitate to express a clear view. He noted that waterboarding had been used to torment prisoners during the Inquisition, by the Japanese in World War II and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.
"We prosecuted our own soldiers for using it in Vietnam," Holder said. "Waterboarding is torture."
In the view of many historians and legal authorities, Holder was merely admitting the obvious. He was agreeing with the clear position of his boss-to-be, President-elect Barack Obama, and he was giving an answer that almost certainly was necessary to win confirmation.
Yet his statement, amounting to an admission that the United States may have committed war crimes, opens the door to an unpredictable train of legal and political consequences. It could potentially require a full-scale legal investigation, complicate prosecutions of individuals suspected of committing terrorism and mire the new administration in just the kind of backward look that Obama has said he would like to avoid.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Do we stop training our special ops guys now?
Since we are “torturing” them with the same methods?
“Do we stop training our special ops guys now?”
Who’s going to want to be one under 0?
Holder and his Commie ‘RATS wouldn’t know “torture” if it jumped up and bit them on the ass. They’re a bunch of girlymen. To them, losing an election or not getting a government bureaucrat job is “torture.”
These guys just talk too much...they are going to walk us all right into trouble. Ignorant.
So is this the way that obama can prosecute the previous administration for war crimes without taking responsibility?
“amounting to an admission that the United States may have committed war crimes, opens the door to an unpredictable train of legal and political consequences.”
That ship has already sailed. They’ve been saying it for years, and we’ve been pilloried world wide as a result.
The part that really gets me PO’d is these idiots claim that US servicemen captured by terrorists are butchered by their captors because we committed the “war crime” of waterboarding a few high-ranking terrorists to gain vital information. They really seem to think that our service people would be treated according to the Geneva Conventions if only we weren’t “torturing” terrorists. It’s hard to believe even the most anti-American leftists could be so stupid, and I don’t think they believe their own lies.
What Obie says publicly, and what his puppet-masters want, are the exact opposite.
You're right, they get waterboarded too.
These hearings are all about eye-candy, feel good nonsense, or a sort of modern inquisition for the ignorant masses.
You can train yourself to resist the effect.
It has demonstrable effectiveness and has a far lower death rate than various drugs commonly used to acquire information.
There's another side to torture the opponents usually don't understand ~ sometimes torture is applied just for entertainment ~ actually, it's probably applied most often for no purpose beyond the pleasure of the folks in charge.
There's a well-known club in New York city that's open to the public ~ across the street from the YMCA in fact. They use torture as a form of pleasure. That's why 7 of 9 dumped her worthless husband.
Obama has thrown out mixed signals on the entire interrogation issue. On one hand, a previous story this week indicated that he will be open to continuing current policy on interrogations and eavesdropping.
Yet, a guy like Holder will be the head of DOJ.
It will be extraordinarily risky for special ops guys, as they really don’t know what legal risk they would be in just for doing their job.
You want torture? I’ll give you f***ing torture. How about this…you are at work and suddenly there is a tremendous crash and fire. After huddling with your co-workers you realize you are 80 stories up and cut off from rescue by an out of control fire below you. The heat is becoming so intense that you can’t stand it much longer. So you try and call your loved ones and if you’re lucky you get through. Maybe you get to say goodbye to them directly or you leave leave a voice mail that will haunt them forever. Then you break a window, hang hundreds of feet above the ground and let go.
That’s torture.
They are PART of the enemy's infrastructure.
"W" would have been wise to have begun rounding them up and imprisoning them for the duration on 9/12.
And IMO if the KR used it, it's torture (although it probably was the least physically damaging routine in the KR torture repertoire).
Nonetheless, that doesn't mean that waterboarding should never be used. I think employing it against murderous psychopaths like Kahlid Sheik Mohammad and Ramzi Binalbish was an appropriate use of torture.
Nah... Everyone knows that you brought it on yourself. Masochism at worst. Unless of course, you mean that Bush is to blame. Then it’s torture.
COMRADE POTUS MUZZIE HUSSEIN basically told his lapdog press corp that they all would be out of jobs if they didn't realize that all of us make mistakes like his Treasury Secretary GEITHNER.
Apparently, Holder must be extremely talented at blackmail.
WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND.
I, personally, am having a hard time believing the Obama “administration” is walking toward disaster with no consideration for the political consequences.
Scenario: Obama closes Gitmo (or starts too), does away with so called “torture”, ties the hands of the CIA/FBI as far as fact gathering and wire tapping. Then we’re attacked. Who exactly is going to take the political fallout? It won’t be Bush on this one. The average American is not against methods to extract info, or gather info...that’s why Bauer is so popular on TV, he does what needs to be done. Obama will take the blame squarely if we are attacked.
It almost makes me believe that Biden was talking about specifically this situation when he mentioned low poll numbers as a result of Obama’s actions in the context of impending attack. They are planning to dismantle these things, knowing full well there will be political fallout once an attack occurs. So my question is, why do it?
“We prosecuted our own soldiers for using it in Vietnam,” Holder said. “Waterboarding is torture.”
From “Characters of the Inquisition” by William Thomas Walsh, TAN Books, 1987; orig. published 1940 (p. 169-170, Chapter V, ‘Torquemada’):
The method that Torquemada substituted for the more barbarous ones of the Renaissance was known as ‘the water cure.” The reo, if he refused to clarify the contradictions in his testimony, or was strongly suspected of withholding important information, was stretched naked and tied with cords upon a very forbidding-looking escalera, or ladder. His nostrils were stopped, his jaws held apart by an iron prong, and a piece of linen placed loosely over his mouth. Into this cloth water was slowly poured, carrying it into the throat. This gave him the fear, and some of the sensations, of suffocation, without allowing him to suffocate. If he squirmed, the cords hurt his wrists and ankles. If he proved very stubborn, one of the familiares might give them an extra twist or two. This must have been a very painful and harrowing experience. Yet it seldom did lasting harm, and it often obtained confessions. On the other hand, it sometimes made the innocent confess. Torquemada assumed that the Inquisitors would seek to avoid injustice in this connection by checking the confessions with known facts. Probably the torture was no more dangerous or disagreeable, all things considered, than certain modern police methods: such as keeping a man awake under a strong light, and having him questioned by relays of detectives for an indefinite number of hours. At least it was an advance over the cruder expedients of the fourteenth century.
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