If torture were effective, Daniel Levin would have revealed planned WH crimes, and saved American lives.

I would like to see the entire administration volunteer to be waterboarded then make a decision if it is torture or not.

Then why didn't he confess to all the WH crimes of Bush and Cheney?

Well duh! Isn't that the point? Scare the shit out of them so that they will tell you what they know? Sheesh.

Breaking news for Democrats.

From ABC News:

"For all the debate over waterboarding, it has been used on only three al Qaeda figures, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials.

As ABC News first reported in September, waterboarding has not been used since 2003 and has been specifically prohibited since Gen. Michael Hayden took over as CIA director.

Officials told ABC News on Sept. 14 that the controversial interrogation technique, in which a suspect has water poured over his mouth and nose to stimulate a drowning reflex as shown in the above demonstration, had been banned by the CIA director at the recommendation of his deputy, Steve Kappes.

Hayden sought and received approval from the White House to remove waterboarding from the list of approved interrogation techniques first authorized by a presidential finding in 2002."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/11/exclusive-only-.html

He found it terrifying.

So we're terrorizing terrorists?

They should thank us for the insight they gain.

Interrogator: Is waterboarding illegal?

Mukasey: I personally find it to be "repugnant".

Interrogator (strapping Mukasey to a board): Is waterboarding illegal?

Mukasey: Hey, I already told you I have determined it personally to be "repugnant".

Interrogator (hoisting the board up with Mukasy"s face down hovering over water):
Is waterboarding illegal?

Mukasey: End this nonsense. Now trice I have proclaimed waterboarding to personally
be "repugnant".

Interrogator (lowering Mukasey"s head underwater for an undetermined amount of time which is based upon whether the interrogator is having a good day):
Is waterboarding illegal?!

Mukasey (With heart pounding and respiratory system under duress; catches a big breath of sweet air before being submerged):
Gurgle, gurgle, bubble, bubble

Interrogator (On a whim decides Mukasey needs a breath of air to survive and raises his head above water):
Is waterboarding illegal?

Mukasey: (GASP! GASP! SPUTTER! GASP! With heart pounding; circulatory and respiratory systems taxed responds): !@#! !@# This is the fourth time I have proclaimed this treatment to be "repugnant". That does not mean it is illegal; illegal to American"s, illegal to American laws, nor illegal to our internationally binding laws. Now let me the hell out of here.

Interrogator: (A military man ordered to perform this controlled task yet having a bad day)

I find your responses to be inconclusive. Waterboarding is either illegal or legal according to our laws and the international laws of the Geneva Conventions which we have signed. Shall we have another go?

Mukasey struggles to hold his breath again as his head is lowered below water again.

His circulatory and respiratory systems are taxed further.

My dictionary defines it as:
"torturous |ˈtôr ch É"rÉ"s| adjective characterized by, involving, or causing excruciating pain or suffering : a torturous eight weeks in their prison camp.

DERIVATIVES torturously adverb

ORIGIN late 15th cent.: from Anglo-Norman French, from torture "torture."

USAGE Tortuous and torturous have different core meanings. Tortuous means 'full of twists and turns' or 'devious, circuitous':: both paths were tortuous and strewn with boulders. Torturous is derived from | torture and means 'involving torture or excruciating pain': | the emergency amputation was torturous. Torturous should be reserved for agonized suffering; it is not a fancy word for 'painful' or 'discomforting,' as in | I found the concert torturous because of the music"s volume."

not long enough

DARN IT!!!! I thought it said Senior Bush officially had himself waterboarded.

There is an effort in the government and the media to say that waterboarding is not torture. One must ask why we tried others for this practice.

WP>
After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: "I was given several types of torture. . . .

Gentlebeings, there are criminals running in our most hallowed and sacred halls, trampling on the flowers and urinating on the carpet. (Ahem.)

These thugs want to demolish everything that America ever once stood for, both in the eyes of the world and in our own eyes. They do it to steal our treasure, our pride, and our identity.

And when these people pass us by, we call them "Senator" and "Your Honor" and "Mister President" and even "Mister Justice."

These men want us to calmly accept even the reprehensible: even torture.

These men want us to believe that it is NECESSARY, even VITAL, that we do so.

They want us to believe that, "this is just 'the way it is' now."

Poppycock.

These men are not worthy even to bear the dust from these hallowed halls upon their shoes.

We don't have to tolerate them. We don't have to follow them. We don't have to wait twelve months to get rid of them.

"Any civil officer" can be Impeached. Any member of Congress can be expelled.

"With freedom .. and justice .. for all."

"United WE stand?" Yes, indeed. And -this- is what that phrase means.

Can you imagine the headlines if some serial killer were found to be waterboarding his victims (ie: using water to kill them and then revive them over and over and over again)...can you imagine how outraged and disgusted people would be?

Your tax dollars at work, folks.

I'm sorry, but I'm not impressed. This guy experienced a little simulation under very controlled conditions under which he knew he was not going to die. And he knew that the water torture wouldn't go on hour after hour, day after day.

Having said this, I must confess to having some mixed feelings about waterboarding. If I knew that waterboarding a terrorist would save 100,000 lives from a dirty bomb in an American city, it would be hard to sacrifice the 100,000.

The fact remains that waterboarding has lead to the DEATHS of some extremely valuable prisoners, as well as a few innocents.


We are the BAD GUYS now.
YES WE ARE. ALL OF US. Just as all GERMANS were responsible for NOT STOPPING HITLER.