Torture '08: Leading Republicans All Support Water-Boarding

New York Times:

A central tenet of every leading Republican candidate's campaign for president is one simple and powerful idea: I alone can best defend the United States from the threat of terrorism.

And in recent weeks, three candidates, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred D. Thompson, have embraced some of the more controversial policies on the treatment of those suspected of supporting terrorism, backing harsh interrogation methods and refusing to rule out the use of waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique, on detainees.

Their public statements came as the debate over whether waterboarding is torture had threatened to derail the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general after he refused to call the technique illegal.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[AntiFascistMajority]

Luckily this is just a nightmare. I'll wake up in a minute to find myself living in a civilized country where there is zero tolerance for torture of any kind.

[fantagor]

And I support water boarding all Republican candidates.

I mean, if it's not torture then what's the big deal?

Or are you GOP babies afraid a wittle water being forcibly poured down your throat while fettered helpless to an incline board?

Yea, I thought so. So long as it's someone else on the receiving end of your black-hearted policies, you couldn't care less.

If there was such a thing as the Devil, he'd be a card carrying Republican and call himself Bill Kristol.

Randy

[Colmore]

Fred looks like he just came out of being water-boarded. This poor guy belongs at home, with his slippers and cigar. His much younger wife is another version of Heather Mills (Paul McCartney's wife) She wants what SHE wants, and she wants it NOW. It has been said that she is the one who wanted him to run. Maybe she thought the stress would be too much for him, and it looks like she could be right. Fred looks like HELL. Certainly not the man for the job of righting this "ship of state"

[MikeDu]

Wasn't is under Rudi that a group NYC police ganged up and sodomized a Haitian(?) immigrant in the station because he wasn't being sufficiently compliant? Got THEIR asses in a sling bigtime for their crimes.

[kellygrrrl]

why is nobody pointing out that the Repug Rhetoric only serves to put our military personnel in severe jeapordy?

If we proudly extoll the virtues of TORTURE then who are we to say to anyone else that THEY cannot torture?

This needs to be brought to the forefront of the discussion.

Any captured American is guaranteed to be tortured if our "leaders" are going to send this message and stand on this platform.

[GoodGuysandBadGuys]

"Torture '08: Leading Republicans All Support Water-Boarding"

----------­----------­-

well there's a shocker!

republicans know all about domination and control. it's their modus operandi.

[starrianna]

"THE ONE TRUE DYNASTY"
a little poem
by
starianna

**********­**********­**********­*********
don't talk to me about dynasty
this is after they killed kennedy

Welcome to the One True Dynasty Film Series!
----------­----------­----------­----------­----
NIXON: The Beginning
NIXON II: Watergate Boogaloo
FORD III: Look At Me
REAGAN IV: A New Beginning
REAGAN V: Victory Tour
BUSH VI: Dad Is Bad
BUSH VII: Junior's War on Terror
BUSH VIII: Are We Too Late?

and coming soon...
REPUBLICAN 9: This Country is MINE!
----------­----------­----------­----------­----
don't talk to me about dynasty
this is after they killed kennedy
now it is time to throw out the T.V.
don't you see?

[Wilburrr]

OK, help me understand this.

As soon as Bush was elected, Cheney was holding meetings in the White House that involved ways to divide Iraq up for private oil companies.

We were attacked on 9/11 by members of Al Quaeda who were largely Saudi Arabian. We attacked Afghanistan, whose Taliban government supported Osama bin Laden and Al Quaeda. We had Osama bin Laden isolated in the caves of Tora Bora.

We then decided that we had to attack Iraq. We did this, not because they attacked us, and not because they had WMD. The people of Iraq kind of resented our invasion and have been resisting our occupation (exactly the way I would if the tables were turned). The president has just stated that Iraqi's are "Taking back their country" because, in this month, the numbers of US KIA are down. We capture insurgents and, to try and get intel out of them, waterboard them. A private army, which does not seem to be answerable to anyone, kills innocent women and children, is ordered out of Iraq by the Iraqi government, but they remain there as we champion the fact that 'Democracy is on the march!'

Meanwhile, members of Congress who have served in the military declare that we should not be involved in any way, shape, or form with torture. The administration changes their definition of torture so they can say they their hands are clean (as they probably would be after a 'waterboarding' episode).

Osama bin Laden, 6 years after 9/11, is still roaming the beautiful countryside of the Pakistan/A­fghanistan border. He has been located twice by US intel, drone planes, and the US military but permission to engage has been denied by the White House on both occasions.

Have I missed anything? It seems like maybe something happened when I went to the lobby to get a refill on my cola product...­.

[StillAmused]

Let's cut through all the bullshit..­. the only consistently demonstrable objective of torture is the perverse pleasure of the torturer.

Call it 'punishment', call it 'vengeance', call it 'street justice', call it 'arousal' -- just don't call it 'intelligence gathering'. It's the idiot's alternative to smart investigation.

Oh... and before some knuckle-dragger tries the stock, worn-out line about how much "intelligence" was obtained from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with 'waterboar­ding'...

The Confession Backfired -- by Paul Craig Roberts, March 17, 2007

"Those who retained enough of their wits under torture would confess to an unbelievable array of crimes in an effort to alert the public to the falsity of the entire process. That is what Mohammed did.

"Mohammed's confession of crimes and plots is so vast that Katherine Shrader of the Associated Press reports that the Americans who extracted Mohammed's confession do not believe it either. It is exaggerated, say Mohammed's tormentors, and must be taken with a grain of salt...

"Mohammed's confession admits to 31 planned and actual attacks all over the world, including blowing up the Panama Canal and assassinating presidents Carter and Clinton and the Pope. Having taken responsibility for the whole ball of wax along with everything else that he could imagine, he was the entire show. No other terrorists needed."

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=10688

Torturers do it 'cause they CAN, 'cause they LIKE it, 'cause it GETS THEM OFF.

Ask Georgie.

[kellygrrrl]

I just wonder how well this rhetoric serves OUR military personnel.­.

If we are announcing so proudly how we support torture then what do we expect is being done to any American who is captured.
Hell, we are even putting out a video of our Justice Dpt guy being water-boarded.
Wonder if it's all the rage in the drunken teen crowd yet

[ultomatt]

There's no better argument for the dissolution of the so called Republican party than this gang of thugs and their circle jerking embrace of torture as an accepted method (for getting their sadistic thrills). Even Mad Dog McCain, while vocally agin torture, is on the same page as Dear Leader, since he signed the Military Commissions Act of 1996, which allows torture, and is on record as being in favor of the soon to be Torture Attorney General, Mukasey. Don't listen to what Mad Dog says, just look at what he does. He's the worst of them all, since he knows whereof he speaks, and the rest of them are just trying to be the biggest know nothing bully on the playground.

This circle jerking strut-fest is gonna go on and on until Hillary kicks their asses...an­d then she'll carry out torture as well, but she'll keep it secret and won't strut around congratulating herself for doing it...which actually is worse. Such is the future we have ahead of us.

Actually, politics is torture. Everyone in this country who knows what the Constitution means, and knows that it has been continuously shat upon for years, are in a permanent state of torture as a result of the neo-Dark Ages that have descended upon this once great country.

I wonder when the R'pugs will openly embrace the rack and the iron maiden? Having that pig turd Guiliani joke about sleep deprivation makes me think he needs to be kept awake for a week with metal music blasting at full volume and bright lights blinking chaotically on and off...he'd certainly be laughing after that, kind of like a hyena (one of his closest relatives). Even Mad Dog is on record saying that the mental torture is far worse than the physical torture...­and sleep deprivation is in the prior category.

This vile championing of mindless despicable cruelty is but one more piece of evidence that proves what perverted deviates the fear mongering Republicans have become in this, the Home of the Land, Free of the Brave.

[brooklyncitizen]

HOW IS THIS NEWS?
CERTAINLY NO SURPRISE..­.

[Ramirez]

Democratic Presidential Candidates Refuse to Rule Out Torture:
***

"Clinton, Clinton, Obama and Schumer. They have all, to a greater or lesser degree, embraced the concept of coercive interrogation (some, even torture — which is unquestionably illegal), and they have all underscored the excruciating complexity of this issue. Somehow, they are fit to lead the Democratic Party but the suitability of Mukasey — who has taken a more measured stance — to be attorney general is in doubt?"

Read more here, including the usual "nuanced" positions from HRC and The Obama:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGU0NjdkYWUxOGQ0NjI1ODA2NjRhYTlmOWUxODMzZTM=

[planetfotheApes]

Ron Paul is a leading Republican. He is number three in fund raising and is gaining rapidly in the polls. He won most of the straw polls and almost every post debate poll.

HE IS ABSOLUTELY AGAINST TORTURE.

Unlike Neocon Hillary, he will restore Constitution government and cut funding to the Military Industrial Complex.

Someone must stop you Neocon/Liberals from sending our tax money to US government terrorists so they can inflict murder and oppression around the world.

Liberals are THE source of funding for the war complex. Ron Paul will cut our terrorist government off at the knees the only way it can be done, by cutting funding.

He needs your help.

[Buddhamonkeydevil]

I support water-boarding all republicans as well as democrats who might or might not be sure whether or not water-boarding is actually torture.