Posted on 02/12/2008 9:44:43 AM PST by seanmerc
How strange is this? The nation’s chief law enforcement officer cannot say whether “waterboarding” is illegal.
At a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Attorney General Michael Mukasey acknowledged under questioning that he would feel tortured if he were waterboarded, but he staunchly refused to say whether it was illegal.
A heinous technique dating back to the Spanish Inquisition, waterboarding involves strapping a prisoner down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create a sensation of imminent drowning.
Mukasey -- whose confirmation for the Cabinet post was championed by two Democrats, Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California -- dodged the legality question on grounds that he was told the technique is no longer used by the CIA on terror suspects.
The CIA and the Pentagon banned waterboarding in 2006, after three terror suspects had been given the treatment.
In testimony Tuesday, CIA director Michael Hayden told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, that the agency’s interrogators had used waterboarding to extract information from three al-Qaida detainees in 2002 and 2003. One of them was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S.
The prisoners were held in secret prisons overseas.
An anonymous intelligence officer told the committee that the CIA officers and contractors who conducted the waterboarding were told it was legal at the time. But he added: “The legal landscape has changed.”
Waterboarding taken to its extreme could cause death, Mike McConnell, director of National Intelligence told the panel. “You could drown someone,” he added.
McConnell said waterboarding remains a technique in the CIA’s arsenal but that it would require the president’s consent and the attorney general’s legal approval before being administered.
Mukasey apparently considers it his role to protect the White House, the CIA and others who could be vulnerable to retroactive criminal charges or civil lawsuits if the U.S. use of waterboarding violated international law. Hence the Justice Department’s stonewalling on the legality of the odious tactic.
Waterboarding is the crux of a Justice Department criminal investigation over whether the CIA illegally or otherwise improperly destroyed videotapes in 2005 of two terror suspects being harshly interrogated.
Mukasey has also lived up to his conservative credentials by opposing legislation that would protect whistleblowers who keep Congress informed about wrongdoing in government agencies. Such a bill would encourage people “to bypass supervisors (and) simply go to a member of Congress with their complaints,” he lamented.
The attorney general -- who can charitably be called “naive”-- said that potential whistle blowers should first seek out supervisors and “take it up the line.”
Mukasey, a long-time federal judge, has obviously been living in a well-guarded judicial bubble, not knowing that whistle blowers often tell the truth at a personal cost of their jobs and livelihood.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, is sponsoring a bill to expand existing protections for people who fear retaliation if they expose waste, fraud and abuse in the government.
The measure would basically overturn a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that government employees do not enjoy First Amendment protections when they report their concerns about government operations.
It’s sad that the country has a man like Mukasey in charge of the Justice Department after the fiasco created by his predecessor Alberto Gonzalez, who rubber-stamped White House end runs around the law.
Mukasey said he could only render an opinion on waterboarding if he knew the circumstances of each situation.
Clearly, Mukasey is cut from the same cloth as Gonzales, believing in expansive powers for the presidency and on the same wave length about tough treatment of detainees.
Since he took over the Justice Department, Mukasey has refused to permit certain administration witnesses to answer congressional subpoenas to testify about the nine U.S. prosecutors who were apparently fired on political grounds.
He suggested that the administration believes it is shielded by executive privilege.
Mukasey seems to be a clone of Gonzales. Just when we were celebrating the near-demise of the hard-core conservatives in the Bush administration, we get the heartless Mukasey.
Hell-en?
Where were you when conservatives were critical of the torture techniques being applied to the Branch Davidians in Waco which included little children?
You stood behind this government when they tore up graves, played the sound of rabbits being skinned alive, “These Boots Are Made For Walking”, and sleep deprivation, topped off with a gas attack that is prohibited in international warfare.
Stuff a sock in it.
She needs to staple that back up into place.
I’ll listen to Helen Thomas if she lets the CIA video her being waterboarded.
Liberal Law Enforcement:
1. People of color must not be inconvenienced, even if criminals.
2. If Bush is for it, we must be against it.
3. Make exceptions in the law for every religion except Christianity.
4. Oh, and Dick Cheney too.
That miserable old troll’s ugly mug is torture.
Who can I sue?
Not secret any more you tempestuous twat....
She used to piss off the Chester A. Arthur administration also.
Apologies to Fred Sanford...”Helen, go put your head in the freezer and make us some ugly-sicles”.
Why have so many good men and women left us so early in life while this decrepit old fossil is still sucking air?
Thanks for the alert, but if I tried to hurl Helen Thomas I’d wind up in the hospital...
Last week it was Fat Tuesday. This week it must be Ugly Tuesday.
Waterboarding is probably a walk in the park when compared with the merciless beating that Helen Thomas received with an the ugly stick.
My dear wife and I were out shopping the other day in northern Virginia. We walked by a car in the parking lot(a real s-box from DC) that carried the bumper sticker “Zero Tolerance For Torture!”
I told my wife, perhaps we should put a sticker on our car that read “Zero Tolerance For Meatheads From DC!” ?
I have a chronic congestion problem and have found that relief can be had without drugs or surgery. The answer is the age old Yoga cleansing ritual of pouring saline solution through you nose and sinus passages. The practice has the following benefits:
* Removes mucus and pollution of the nasal passages and sinuses
* Helps to prevent respiratory tract diseases
* Daily use relieves allergies, colds and sinusitis
* Beneficial in the treatment of headaches and migraines
This is carried out with the head horizontal and rotated to the side so that salt water introduced into the upper nostril flows through the sinus passages and out the lower nostril. There is absolutely no danger of salt water entering the esophagus or lungs.
As "waterboarding" is carried out with the head lower then the torso it seems very unlikely that water would enter the lungs. It is necessary to remember to breath through your mouth while using a "Neti pot" to cleanse your sinuses and I would think the same strategy would work for "waterboarding".
The practice of Yoga is widespread and the use of salt water to cleanse your nasal passages is part of a daily ritual for millions of people worldwide. I expect that many of them are having a gentle laugh as our learned leaders attempt to define what is obstensively a harmless ritual as torture.
Regards,
GtG
PS Mayhap they would prefer it if we used warmer water?
Did their car have one of those spiffy “taxation without representation” license plates?
You bet!
“Zero tolerance for torture”
What do they propose we do with those who do torture? What is the punishment? And isn’t that being intolerant?
Ever see a bumpersticker that says “zero tolerance for terrorism”? The peaceniks (read Commies) never go there. They carry banners that say “I support the insurgency”.
They do not represent a PEACE movement. They are anti-American war. They have chosen a side in the combat and it is against us.
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