Mukasey concerned with liability of the White House
November 1, 2007
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According to the New York Times this morning, Mukasey cannot call waterboarding torture, because torture is illegal. Yet, waterboarding happens in this country and the president may have explicitly approved it. So, if the Attorney General considers waterboarding torture, than all who use it and approve it should face criminal charges. Cover yourselves, that is what this is about. I cannot help but think about all those Nazis who burned so much paperwork to cover up the holocaust and their participation in it. That is what we are facing right now, covering these officials is more important than covering this country and what it stands for.
The New York Times also manages to misrepresent what waterboarding is:
Waterboarding is a centuries-old interrogation method in which a prisoner’s face is covered with cloth and then doused with water to create a feeling of suffocation.
But that is not what waterboarding is. Here is a description from someone who knows, because he trains American navy personnel to deal with torture:
Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.
Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration –usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threaten with its use again and again.
There is no way to make nice about this or to suggest that it is anything but torture. This country tortures people, willingly and knowingly. At some point, someone will have to be held accountable for that. A question at the next presidential debate should ask whether they will bring Bush to justice and persecute him for human rights violations. That will show courage.
Technorati Tags: human rights, waterboarding, senate, torture
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