Lieberman Supports Waterboarding: 'It's Not Like Using Hot Coals'

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman reluctantly acknowledged Thursday that he does not believe waterboarding is torture, but believes the interrogation technique should be available only under the most extreme circumstances.

Lieberman was one of 45 senators who voted Wednesday in opposition to a bill that would limit the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method where detainees typically are strapped to a bench and have water poured into their mouth and nose making them feel as if they will drown.

The Senate passed the measure. [...]

"You want to be able to use emergency tech to try to get the information out of that person," Lieberman said. Of course, Lieberman believes such authority has limits. He does not believe the president could authorize having hot coals pressed on someone's flesh to obtain that information.

The difference, he said, is that waterboarding is mostly psychological and there is no permanent physical damage. "It is not like putting burning coals on people's bodies. The person is in no real danger. The impact is psychological," Lieberman said. Lieberman said that his position on waterboarding differs from that of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who he has endorsed as a presidential candidate. As a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam, McCain was tortured. McCain, he said, believes waterboarding is torture.

Comments

[fourex]

Lieberman Supports Waterboarding: 'It's Not Like Using Hot Coals'

Joe is so strong and powerful, a true warrior.

[research]

No physical marks is the measure of good torture?

Then: electric shock, simulated firing squads, various drugs like LSD, and drugs that cause excruciating pain, heat to the point of collapse, cold to the point of near death, noise to the level that almost causes deafness, strobe lights short of burning the eyes, first degree burns over as much of the body short of death, lie about how friends and family are dead and video's of them being tortured.

Since only physical damage is the measure, we MUST assume they are using all of the techniques.

Is this the America you want?

[EspritDeVoltaire]

My father-in-law was on the legal staff at the Nuremberg War Trials. He was a Jew. His best friend, also a Jew, liberated one of the camps while serving in the infantry.

Never, in all the years I knew these men, in all their conversations about the war, did one of them ever make a comment about regretting that they were not more cruel to the Germans. They would spin in their graves, if after all they did serving their country, that a two-bit demagogue politician, of their own culture, would dare to defend such an abhorrent practice.

[moda31]

someone please do it to him then

[4Hope]

Can you imagine we are actually discussing torture? I can't look at those pictures & I can't believe this!
What has happened to Lieberman's mind? Does he know what he is saying?
Did that freak, Mel Gibson contribute to this minimizing of torture with his sicko movies & his love of blood & gore?
How stupid are these people to believe that torturing will get the truth?
Please, HuffPosters, can't we unite somehow around this issue & publicly protest & get them to think about what they are saying?! Help Stamp Out Evil !

[BushBites]

Why are the biggest dorks in favor of torture?

Revenge for high school humiliations, I'm guessing.

[Neoconstant]

Lieberman is disgusting. Why is he even thinking about putting hot coals on people? Thanks alot, Connecticut!

[ProudNeoCon]

I tried it - not big deal...

[clumberfeet]

He will tell you whatever you want to hear even if it's not true and the minimal psychological damage would be that '24' is just a TV show.

[boylane]

Lieberman can stick his opinion up his arse! If he thinks it's acceptable, legal, something worthy of this country, not immoral then he should let himself be waterboarded. Then he can make a more informed decision.

[Ring0]

Ditto ...

[teacake]

Well said!

[Ides]

Hm. So we executed the Japanese for doing it, but now that WE do it it's not torture anymore. I wonder if we've just grown more bloodthirsty and horrible as a country in the last 60 years.

The threats aren't any greater. The world's not in any more danger. We're just more violent.

[BadChristian]

And afraid.

Sixty years ago, I don't think Americans would have trembled in terror before a bunch of craven NeoCon chicken-hawks.
I think they would have laughed at the spooky stories from ghouls like Perl and Little Billy Kristol.

[foneric]

Thank you for making that point. In my opinion I think that should be the leading argument to the American people about waterboarding/torture. I can't believe that more people including Senators and Reps aren't making the same point.

[guntotinganglion]

Not really, it's just been revealed because of how incompetent and petulant LHI Bushemada has been. This country has been supporting the worst forms of human rights abuse since before the end of WW2. For instance, look up Shiro Ishii, and tell me that the US protecting this monster (who died peacefully in his bed in 1959) wasn't the most heinous act ever.

The American war industry became willing participants in this savagery when they gave this psychopath immunity from prosecution...and in so doing, made it impossible to put him to death. The Russians apparently wanted him, and would have executed him on the spot if they'd gotten their hands on him! This is why Ishii gave himself up to the Americans...because he KNEW that his evil knowledge would go to the highest bidder...the amoral war profiteers who were salivating for it.

This insect was protected for his knowledge of biological and chemical weaponry...and the profit potential that knowledge represented to the military-industrial complex. He spent most of the 1930's testing his weapons on the Chinese population. When WW2 broke out, he and his gang of savages practiced the most medieval forms of torture imaginable...like dissecting conscious human beings. Removing organs from conscious victims, so they could see how long they'd survive. Bubonic plague and all imaginable diseases were tested on human beings. Some of those human beings were American soldiers, and Australian soldiers...who were subjected to unspeakable acts of savagery.

So...sorry, the US has been involved in the most heinous acts of violence, not the least of which were the dual atomic bombings, whose only purpose was to kick start the Cold War. Just look at Gen. Curtis LeMay's complaints in early 1945, that there weren't any targets left to destroy! He must've wanted to take out Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so sad for him that they were saved as "pristine" sites for atomic bombings. They couldn't measure the effectivity of the bombings if they hit previously flattened cities...and thus the best were saved for last!

[guntotinganglion]

Oh ya, one other thing about Ishii...to this day, there's a monument in Tokyo to his Unit 731.

There's lots of resources about this monster, below are two on wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiro_Ishii

[gcallaghan]

it's not a matter of us having grown more bloodthirsty and violent over 60 years, it's about our barbaric administration during the last 7.

[guntotinganglion]

Not really, it's just been revealed because of how incompetent and petulant LHI Bushemada has been. This country has been supporting the worst forms of human rights abuse since before the end of WW2. For instance, look up Shiro Ishii, and tell me that the US protecting this monster (who died peacefully in his bed in 1959) wasn't the most heinous act ever.

The American war industry became willing participants in this savagery when they gave this psychopath immunity from prosecution...and in so doing, made it impossible to put him to death. The Russians apparently wanted him, and would have executed him on the spot if they'd gotten their hands on him! This is why Ishii gave himself up to the Americans...because he KNEW that his evil knowledge would go to the highest bidder...the amoral war profiteers who were salivating for it.

This insect was protected for his knowledge of biological and chemical weaponry...and the profit potential that knowledge represented to the military-industrial complex. He spent most of the 1930's testing his weapons on the Chinese population. When WW2 broke out, he and his gang of savages practiced the most medieval forms of torture imaginable...like dissecting conscious human beings. Removing organs from conscious victims, so they could see how long they'd survive. Bubonic plague and all imaginable diseases were tested on human beings. Some of those human beings were American soldiers, and Australian soldiers...who were subjected to unspeakable acts of savagery.

So...sorry, the US has been involved in the most heinous acts of violence, not the least of which were the dual atomic bombings, whose only purpose was to kick start the Cold War. Just look at Gen. Curtis LeMay's complaints in early 1945, that there weren't any targets left to destroy! He must've wanted to take out Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so sad for him that they were saved as "pristine" sites for atomic bombings. They couldn't measure the effectivity of the bombings if they hit previously flattened cities...and thus the best were saved for last!

[Kundera]

Bernie Ward update:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/iteam&id=5956230

[desertdweller]

Hasn't that mole on Joe's forehead been getting larger and turning color?

[kappa08]

it's not a mole...it's portal to another universe.

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

Lieberman's heart tells him water-boarding isn't torture, even though the laws of this country tell him otherwise... how very Reganesque!

Lieberman isn't a Democratic Independant, he's a CoDependant Neo-Con.

[teacake]

Excellent point!

[thirteen13]

He is a criminal with a cold blooded heart.
Voters in CT should be very proud of this torturer.

It is amazing how these criminals admit guilt and then grant themselves immunity, all with that grin on his face.

That's like saying; I don't think pot or cocain use is so bad so long as you stay away from crack.

[dlswriter]

If waterboarding is not torture, than why wouldn't he want to use it in every circumstance? If it works and doesn't cause any permanent physical damage, then shouldn't parents be using it on their children to find out if they are sexually active or doing drugs? Shouldn't every suspect be waterboarded to extract a confession? Why the conditions?

[jadez]

bravo!

[Drewkowski]

That is perhaps the most sensible carrying-to-the-logical-extent of the "there is nothing wrong with it" thesis yet. If there isn't, then let us indeed use it freely. (Now I know how to ask my wife where she's been when she comes home this evening!) I love this "new" America!

[LeftVetPatriot]

Yeah! If it's so effective, why not use it in schools and workplaces to keep us all honest and free?

[FastMovingCloud]

Very good question.
I suspect that (regardless of what Droopy Liebermann says) the answer is: BECAUSE IT'S TORTURE!!!

[apresdeluge]

Obama/Lieberman '08! After all, Obama supported Lieberman's re-elction bid and called him his mentor in the Senate.

[Jazz42]

Obama/Lieberman 08'
Senator Obama wasn't the only Senator that supported Lieberman reelection campaign. I'm sure Senator Clinton and her husband supported Lieberman's reelection as well. What is your point?
(apresdeluge)

[GuiltyUndertaker]

I hope the point is that the Democrats have done it to themselves again -- nominating a middle-of-the-road "electable" candidate instead of one who stands on Demcratic principles. Come back, Kucinich. All is forgiven.

[kmdippenger]

funny, even Ned Lamont has gotten over this as he realizes that the greater good is more important than whatever was going on with Obama at the http://nedlamont.com/news/2256/why-im-supporting-barack-obamak-obama

[kat7]

Boxer also supported Lieberman against Ned Lamont.

If Huffington runs Boxer next time, you've my vote.

[bluestatelib]

Uh, Lieberman has endorsed McCain for President. Your cheap shot is beyond stupid.

[hyjanks]

One question and one correction:
Is there any legal way to recall a Senator?
John McCain just voted in favor of torture as an interrogation tactic (for obvious reasons).

[MrJoyboy]

I think Joe L is mistaking waterboarding for a kinky sexual practice.

[Plotius]

Well, I think it is a better analogy to say that If Liebermen had been in Germany during the Holocaust he would be the jew pushing his fellow jews into the gas chamber.
The man is rat excrement.

[in4success]

can you imagine how much water it would take to waterboard him? damn...