Sometimes it’s Torture, and Sometimes it Ain’t, But (Royal) We Decline to Clarify Further
By Mona
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Waterboarding, that is.
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And so legal sometimes, and not others.
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So sez our Attorney General, Michael B. Mukasey, in a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But he isn’t inclined to share with the Committee under what circumstances waterboarding is licit, and declines to provide any further information to Congress justifying his opinion: “Despite disagreements we may have on this issue, I hope that the Committee will respect my judgment on this matter,” he wrote. Aka, the “Trust Us” theory of government.
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Marty Lederman, unsurprisingly, deftly captures Mukasey’s position:
Senator [Russ] Feingold [D-WI] just asked Mukasey when he would share with the Committee — even in closed session – the legal explanations of why the CIA techniques are not unlawful. Mukasey’s response: He won’t, because it’s classified. That is to say: The scope and application of this federal law is so secret that not even the legislators who enacted it can be permitted to understand it. Short version: Congress can take a hike.
Sen. Feingold, like a lot of libruls and libertarians, concerns himself with checks ‘n balances ‘n oversight ‘n other stuff, but enough is enough: where is our trust!? Are we really so sure unbridled liberty for the Executive to torture — unbridled because the Executive alone decides when the Executive may torture — would be a bad thing? A pinch, dash and squirt of authoritarianism sprinkled with barbarism Keep Us Safe, doncha know.
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January 30, 2008 @ 10:06 pm
Mukasey ducks waterboarding issue…
Senate Democrats accused Attorney General Michael Mukasey of ducking questions Wednesday on whether …
Comment by Michael —
January 31, 2008 @ 8:00 am
Sure, lets tell the terrorist leaders our techniques. And while we’re at it, tell the whole world the Democrats were for it, before they were against it - a familiar pattern of hypocrisy and clever dirty tricks pulled by the “libruls” all the time. But the uber liberal press like CNN, NBC, MSNBC omit these facts. It is the evil republicans we cannot trust! Democrats, sure, we can trust their “motivations” to be always justified and caring. Cough, cough…
Nancy Pelosi knew and approved of waterbording in 2002. They even asked if the torture techniques were harsh enough to get results.
Now, DailyKosKomrades, HuffNPuff, NYSlimes and every other liberal rag can’t get enough of beating the President over the head. Motive? To make him appear evil in eyes of independents and soft-minded individuals who cannot think for themselves. Soros funded think tanks, Clinton’s Media Matters and all the other liberal huckters can care less about the well being of some terrorist muslim responsible for the bombing of innocents. The technique was only utilized three times according to released information.
OTH, 40 million dead babies is a no-brainer and should be legal.
Go figure, Democrats - kill our own, 40 million, but don’t dare waterboard a terrorist that is witholding information that can potentially save lives of Americans. - There you go, the Dems are against saving American babies, so of course they’re against saving all Americans, first in line our soldiers.
To repulsive to think of pro-death, pro-bend over to terrorist and pro-enemy.
Torture techniques should not be discussed in public. Enough is enough indeed. Our navy seals go thru waterboarding as part of military training and go forward in life. A reporter went thru it.
Maybe next week, we can begin to toss out downy pillows and comforters to all the terrorist to keep them warm. They can all be emblazened with Code Pink lettering as a gift from ABSCAM Murtha, Nancy “I’ll talk to Syrian Tyrant, but not Columbian President” Pelosi and Harry “We Lost” Reid.
Just great, libertarian is just another name for uber liberal. Anything goes except of course defending life, or helping others like Iraqi to be free from oppression. Only uber Libertarian Europeans and Caucasions deserve freedom. Arabs, Kurds, Chaldeans are not capable of being free. The low expectations of soft bigotry.
If France had not helped Washington, Jefferson and Franklin, we’d most likely had been a UK colony until the late 1800s, and with socialized medicine today, plus the Queen of England as our god.
The first Gulf war we left the Kurds and Shia to be slaughtered. It was a huge mistake agreed to with the UN. As a result, Jaque Chirac, Putin, and every other scum leader in the world grew rich off of UN Oil for Food scams and kickbacks. 12 years of agony for Iraqis, 12 years of oppression, death, genocide, REAL TORTURE with beatings, stabbings, breaking of bones, electricution, etc., while the world looked away.
But that is what liberals and libertarians are good for and largely most of the republicans. Looking the other way, or pretending to care by setting up anual meetings, oh gosh, look at the poor africans, lets give their corrupt leaders more money, sure. Lets talk to the tyrants of Syria, Iran, Sudan, and every other single failed state corrupt leader.
If we cannot care enough to take action to free other people from the total pit of despair in these nations, then we ourselves do not deserve freedom. Because as long as tyrants rule, brainwash and incite hatred of their oppressed masses, war will always be on the horizon. If not with Saddam, then the Taliban, if not them, then Iran and Hamas.
Iraq is the beginning of a long war. Get use to it. This war has been going on for over 1400 years since the prophet Mohammed chopped the first head off of the poor soul who would not been down to his will. Russia indulges these tyrants. Putin, a former KGB agent is rebuilding his military and block important sanctions daily against Iran. China, atheist, communist, much like Libertarians do not care about what tyrannical leaders do as long as they get their oil. What the heck, they have a billion people. They could seen 200 million to war and not bat an eye. They killed upwards to 100 million of their own under Mao.
And waterboarding is so terrible because we are a civilized nation? Sure, 40 million dead babies and counting… why not go back to status quo, be like Russia, China, much of far left socialized Europe. Lets give up on Iraq, toss in the towel. The Middle East can never be free with a representative government. Its meant only for special people, “libruls” and libertarians.
Ohhhhh that evil Bush. He caused the earthquake, the hurricane and little boys and girls to fall down and skin their knees.
Wake up, get real, we live in dangerous times, fighting to wars half way around the globe against an enemy who does not wear a uniform and will gladly blow up all your precious shopping malls, movie theatres, bars, and any other luxury the West indulges in. They murder innocent women and children daily by sending suicide bombers, many children themselves into grocery markets, Mosque, music stores, any place that serves alcohol, any open area where large groups gather. They have tried bomb America again on a large scale. We were fortunate to capture them this time in the UK through evil surveilance techniques that liberals do not want our government to use.
Imagine if we had only captured one terrorist, some information gave a clue that the bombing was going to happen on a specific date. The terrorist does not break after utilizing Code Pink pillows. The date draws closer. What do you do? Keep giving the terrorist pillows? And kosher meals? Do you risk another 3,000 civilian lives by not turning up the heat? What happens if the terrorist bomb does strike and the government never acted to get the information from the original terrorist? I gurantee the sitting President would be crucified by the very same media that laments waterboarding today and all the “libruls” would demand a verbal hanging, that they step down, vote of no-confidence, or possible impeachment. The public would be outraged.
Or do you up the techniques utilized to get them to speak? Do you save Americans and risk the ignorant riducule of “libruls” and libertarians who don’t have a clue at what terrorist are trying to do around the world to our soldiers and to civilians?
What do you do as Commander in Chief, sworn to uphold the oath of office to first and foremost protect the nation? Let say, it happens twice, three times. Bombs go off in America. A leak, this time not by “libruls” is printed by NYSlimes that the CIA had a terrorist which new all this information, but could not get him to crack because of soft, fluffy Code Pink pillows?
Real life scenario, your family dies at the hands of suicide bombers because the terrorist was not grilled sufficiently with humane techniques such as waterboarding to get information. What do you do then? Still going to worry about that terrorist? OR demand “change” in the future? Or will you celebrate the life of your dead family as part of standing for principles? And demand that waterboarding still not be used?
Long rant, important points in the end.
1) Pelosi and Democrats knew in 2002
2) Like Kerry, flip flop, blame Bush
3) What if your family died for Code Pink?
4) What if bombs kept going off and the government knew more would kill innocent Americans because a terrorist knew the bomb dates and people involved.
Al Qaeda bombed our embassies, USS Cole, the WTC in 1993. We didn’t listen to the terrorist. We treated them like our local police treats criminals. You have a right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law… This is stupid. They’re not US citizens, they’re terrorist warriors and will murder innocents anywhere, anytime. When they are caught on the battlefield in wars overseas, they do not deserve kid glove treatment, or special rights guranteed to US citizens. They do not abide by Geneva conventions, nor have they signed the treaty. They answer to no one but Allah. They blow themselves up for 72 virgins, which I guess explains why they murder innocent children on purpose.
As a result of not fighting this as a war after 1993, we lost valuable evidence of bin Ladens plans to bomb us again. As a result of Clintons refusal to fight this war, we lost 3000 Americans that were not capable of fighting a war. Truth is, we’re lucky it was not 50,000 Americans. It easily could’ve been.
Soldiers, brave men and women, volunteer to fight this enemy, knowing full well they may die so that the rest of Americans can be safe. Al Qaeda sent many of their fighters into Iraq, some prior to Americas attack on Saddam. Hezbollah sent some of their leaders into the south thru Iran, supported by Iran.
This war needs to be won fully and significantly by the West, by America. And sometimes, some forms of humane torture must be utilized to get information as quick as possible to prevent the death of more Americans.
If a mother can make a choice to kill an innocent baby in her womb, then I think America can make a choice to use stresful techniques to get information out of terrorist that want to murder us.
Comment by Thoreau —
January 31, 2008 @ 11:50 am
That’s a long rant in defense of torture. I just skimmed it, but I love this part:
What do you do? Keep giving the terrorist pillows? And kosher meals?
What are you, some kind of anti-Semite, implying that Jews would commit terrorist acts against America?
I would obviously rather give the terrorist a halal meal.
Comment by Bill —
February 1, 2008 @ 1:25 am
Jeez, Michael
Can’t you get your own blog?