Of course it’s torture you stupid sack of shit
By thoreau
Sorry for the profanity, but I’m sick and tired of the weaseling on torture. It’s 2007, for Christ’s sake. The lies have been laid bare. There’s absolutely no reason for even a Bush appointee to think he can get away with claiming that waterboarding isn’t torture. Of course it’s torture! They even include it in the “How to survive torture if you get captured” class that some US soldiers take.
Well, actually, there is a reason for a Bush appointee to think that he can get away with this:Â The Democrats have absolutely zero spinal cord.
If the Dems want me to even think about voting for them down the road they need to filibuster this thug.
Comment by Tony P. —
October 19, 2007 @ 2:11 am
The easiest way to decide whether a particular practice is “torture”: would you call it “torture” if Iranians were doing it to a captured American pilot?
Of course, Republican minds are not fettered by a foolish consistency. The fundamental (and I chose that word deliberately) premise of Republican thinking is that Americans are unique: WE interrogate, THEY torture; WE do “strategic bombing”, THEY are “homicide bombers”; WE bring democracy, THEY have no right to resist; WE have “signing statements”, THEY have “dictatorship”. It is enough to make one puke.
Alternatively, you can hold your nose and vote for every Dem you can, not to endorse their “spinelessness”, but to renounce, repudiate, crush, punish, and generally humiliate the GOPers. It may sound like I’m encouraging you to inflict “torture” on poor, dumb Republicans, but it’s just a matter of definition, really.
– TP
Comment by ajay —
October 19, 2007 @ 4:12 am
1. Technically it’s obscenity, not profanity. Which, of course, reminds me of “we train our pilots to drop liquid fire on women and children. But we won’t allow them to write “fuck” on their airplanes – because it’s obscene!”
2. Filibuster? Can’t they just refuse to confirm him? They have a majority, don’t they?
Comment by wade —
October 19, 2007 @ 5:54 am
can’t they just waterboard him?
Comment by mds —
October 19, 2007 @ 7:40 am
Yes, or refuse to vote him out of committee. Leahy could take a page from the Hatch playbook and kill any nominee. Except, of course, that Leahy, Schumer, etc, just can’t stop slobbering over oh-so-manly Mukasey. So I suspect that given that numerous Democratic senators have been complicit in raping the Constitution to death, Thoreau is already presuming that committee approval is a foregone conclusion, and that Mukasey would win an up-or-down vote. So he’s clinging to a slender straw that forty-one Democrats disapprove sufficiently of torture to block this guy. Two problems with this scenario:
(1) This administration will not send up anyone any better than this, and in the meantime pro-torture, pro-unilateral-executive Peter Keisler remains Acting Attorney General, so what’s the diff?
(2) Enough Democratic senators are sniveling, craven appeasers to make a filibuster unsupportable anyway, given their total capitulation on the “Torture is wrong, but the executive can do it whenever it wants without penalty” MCA. Why should they stop a guy just because he’s someone who’s not sure if torture is torture, and who as a judge approved the enemy combatant status of US citizen Jose Padilla purely on the say-so of the Leader?
(Jeebus, this fellow asserted to the SJC that Hamdi v. Rumsfeld found the opposite of what it actually did. Clearly he should be the government’s top lawyer.)
Comment by Nell —
October 19, 2007 @ 9:18 am
mds: this fellow asserted to the SJC that Hamdi v. Rumsfeld found the opposite of what it actually did.
Can you quote what Mukasey said about Hamdi? I brought up your point on a thread at Obsidian Wings.
Comment by wjw —
October 19, 2007 @ 10:24 am
When one of these jackasses who advocates torture volunteers to demonstrate the safety of waterboarding by submitting to it live on CSPAN, then I’ll *consider* listening to his views on the matter.
Comment by bdr —
October 19, 2007 @ 11:34 am
What was particularly galling in Mukasey’s testimony was his heartfelt (and I mean heartfelt; not being sarcastic) concern for the legal jeopardy of America’s torturers.
Retroactive immunity, bitches! It’s the new black!
Comment by mds —
October 19, 2007 @ 11:48 am
Nell:
It came up in Glenn Greenwald’s liveblogging of the first day of testimony. I confess that I was unable to watch directly, but Mona would presumably vouch for Mr. Greenwald’s account. The relevant excerpt:
Read the whole thing.
(Gad, I’ve always wanted to do a “read the whole thing.” My life is now complete.)
Comment by mds —
October 19, 2007 @ 11:51 am
Hmm, I didn’t check for the inevitable further update at the end of Mr. Greenwald’s account. Talking Points Memo apparently has the video.
Comment by Gary Farber —
October 19, 2007 @ 12:38 pm
“(1) This administration will not send up anyone any better than this, and in the meantime pro-torture, pro-unilateral-executive Peter Keisler remains Acting Attorney General, so what’s the diff?”
Entirely obviously, the “diff” is that the Democrats won’t have confirmed an A-G who won’t say water-boarding is torture. They’ll have, you know, opposed that, rather than gone along with it. It will still be just a Bush thing, not a “the whole U.S. government” thing.
It’s not as large a difference as actually having an A-G who has opposed water-boarding as torture, but it’s a distinct difference in degree of legitimacy. It would be at least a minor display of resistance, though not more.
Comment by Ugh —
October 19, 2007 @ 2:39 pm
How about, “if you’re wondering whether something is torture, it is.”
Comment by Nell —
October 19, 2007 @ 4:28 pm
Thanks, mds. (and I did read the whole thing, you’ll be pleased to know. ;>)
The process by which candidates who’d otherwise be unacceptable get confirmed because they’re not as bad as the lying, lawless sacks of shvt that preceded them appears to be routine now.
The Senate won’t decline to confirm Mukasey despite his lack of commitment to the Constitution (or, let’s say, his unusual interpretation of the Constitution) because they’ll argue that he’d be an improvement over Kreisler on non-torture, non-spying issues, as well as over Gonzales in the lying-to-Congress department.
In practice, the differences are so small as to make no difference at all, and, as Gary says, both parties will own the result.
Comment by Jon H —
October 19, 2007 @ 4:36 pm
“volunteers to demonstrate the safety of waterboarding by submitting to it live on CSPAN”
Administered, in a prison, by someone sentenced to life without parole in Mukasey’s court. Without guards standing by to ensure Mukasey’s survival.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
October 20, 2007 @ 1:48 am
I’d settle for him getting waterboarded and having to answer the question there in the room.
And a real waterboarding, not the one they had some guy undergo on Fox News awhile back. One that doesn’t stop when he asks.
Comment by Gary Farber —
October 20, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
“How about, ‘if you’re wondering whether something is torture, it is.†That explains “reality” tv.