See… this is bipartisanship:
Michael Mukasey drew closer to becoming attorney general Friday after two key Senate Democrats said they would vote for him despite his refusal to say whether waterboarding is torture.
The decision by Sens. Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein to back President Bush’s nominee came shortly after the chairman of the committee, Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced he would vote against Mukasey, a former federal judge.
[…] Including Leahy, five of the Judiciary Committee’s 10 Democrats had said they would vote against Mukasey’s confirmation after the nominee earlier this week refused to say that waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning, is torture and therefore illegal.
But with nine Republicans on the panel, Schumer and Feinstein’s support for Mukasey virtually guarantees that a majority of the committee will recommend his confirmation when it votes on it next Tuesday.
When the media establishment moralistically calls for more bipartisanship, this is what they are talking about: Democrats caving and crossing the aisle to vote with the Republican block. It almost never happens the other way around on the most important issues of the day. Almost Never.
The issue here was simple. Is simulated drowning torture, and thus illegal? Mukasey, soon to be our nation’s top law enforcement official, refused to say. So this noble display of bipartisanship now confirms that the United States of America is a nation that condones torture.
Fuck bipartisanship.
Waterboarding isn’t simulated drowning. It is drowning. It’s just not enough drowning to kill you.
Jesus H. Christ, Goldy. You scared me. Up until “Fuck bipartisanship”.
Why, oh why can’t Democrats take a stand and kick ass?
Pussies.
hey nicholas @1 why dont you goggle tha gulf war of 1991 and see how they treated americans who were shot down you fuckin idiot.
I do not think WB is torture BUT I also can see NO reason to allow Mukasey to become AG if he is not willing to state that.
An AG is NOT a Judge nor is he the Shyster for the Prexy. He is the people’s attorney and we have a right to ask his opinion before we torture folks.
Do I smell another election year horse turd here? I assume BHO will vote no, how will HRC vote??? Didn’t she support Mukasey?
BTW, the guy is an OJ. Another quite fair question would be to ask him if he has requested a rabbinic opinion on this issue. But, of course, we is all too goody goody too shoes to let the nasty issue of religion enter the
pubicpublic arena,Well, let’s see. If we can get the islamo fascists to stop beheading people and blowing up their children MAYBE we wouldnt need to drip water on their itty bitty heads to crack them.
Jeez! Are you people serious with this stuff? Thank GOD we have a man in the White House with the brass to not listen to you sniveling idiots.
And Hillary aint got the stones to do one single thing about it either – even SHE knows the terrorists are not using any ‘moral code’ like that windbag Kennedy thinks our soldier should.
ITS A WAR .. its not a criminal episode. Get over it already!
HA said: “When the media establishment moralistically calls for more bipartisanship, this is what they are talking about: Democrats caving and crossing the aisle to vote with the Republican block. It almost never happens the other way around on the most important issues of the day. Almost Never.”
Hey, you know why that is? Cause the GOP party doesnt agree with the moonbat cut and run attitude. They know their constituents want them to kick the asses of the people who want to decimate this country. Sorry, you and your ilk dont or cant understand that. Wait, no I’m not..
Ann Says: Well, let’s see. If we can get the islamo fascists to stop beheading people and blowing up their children MAYBE we wouldnt need to drip water on their itty bitty heads to crack them.
You sound like an Al-Qaeda recruiter. Yes, let’s fight a fire with more fire. I love how you justify torture at-large because you think all brown people are the same. Fuck you, you coward.
Ann Says: Jeez! Are you people serious with this stuff? Thank GOD we have a man in the White House with the brass to not listen to you sniveling idiots. Yes, the man that thought we’d be out of Iraq by Fall 2003. The man that thought North Korea was evil and refused to talk to them. Now they have processed plutonium for several warheads. The world is easier to understand if you think in your simplistic mindset Ann. Too bad when you make decisions based on this mindset, things go to hell. Oh, and fuck you.
Ann Says: ITS A WAR .. its not a criminal episode. Get over it already! Since 2001, every single foiled terrorist plot, here and abroad, was stopped by law enforcement and police work. Fuck you. 9/11 might’ve been prevented by police work if the Bush administration and Condi Rice would’ve fucking listened to Richard Clarke.
Ann Says: Hey, you know why that is? Cause the GOP party doesnt agree with the moonbat cut and run attitude. They know their constituents want them to kick the asses of the people who want to decimate this country. Sorry, you and your ilk dont or cant understand that. Wait, no I’m not.. Cut-and-run? Being fucking sickened by the weakening our armed forces to the breaking point in an ill-planned, no-win endeavor to begin with is cut-and-running? No it is not. Doing the same stupid shit, over and over without trying to solve the problem is cutting and running. Cowards stick with doesn’t work rather than admit mistake and fight to fix the problem. You are a coward.
This country was NOT founded on ‘the end justifies the means’ philosophy. We stand for the rule of law, fairness, a higher moral ideal than most in the world. During WWII the Japanese army in the Pacific tortured and killed for sport during the Bataan death march. Some German units shot and tortured our soldiers and very much the occupied French. We did not, however, as a policy of the government, respond in kind.
Sure there were incidents where individual units or soldiers would take revenge. Torture was used as well in the battle field and always has been. This is understandable, it is war. That, however, does not make it right, moral or, for that matter Christian.
If we are not fighting for these principles for what are we spilling the blood of our men and women? Waterboarding dates back to at least the Spanish Inquisition. I would hope we could all agree that is not the country we want to be left with.
Were this kind of thing done to a robbery suspect, or even a rape suspect, there would be hell to pay by the police and I dare say NO ONE in this country would defend it.
Again I ask: What is it we are fighting for if not the principles of democracy, freedom, individual rights, citizen rights versus the government?
The answer, often too quick and shallow, is ‘survival.’ I reject this as simplistic and historically inaccurate. The Nazis, the Japanese, for goodness sake the British from whom we broke, must have presented us with a far more imminent and complete destruction.
The unwillingness to declare what is and is not torture; to allow unfettered listening and searches without either a warrant or congressional oversight; to follow the creed of ‘my country, right or wrong.’ These are threats to liberty as we have always known and treasured it. Indeed to our way of life and our country. To paraphrase Ben Franklin: those who would sacrifice liberty for secuity deserve neither.
S.Jew: “I do not think WB is torture…”
It was a method condemned at the Nuremberg trials. Maybe it’s time to overturn those verdicts, eh? It is outlawed by the Geneva conventions. It is outlawed in our criminal code.
And yes, it is torture by any reasonable standard or definition. Both you and Alan Dershowitz should be ashamed. Because if that is what your religion teaches you, then yes, by all means, it is both a duty and obligation to keep such “religions” out of the public arena.
Ann @6: “Sorry, you and your ilk dont or cant understand that. Wait, no I’m not..
Allow me to finish: quite sane.
Dear Ann,
Fuck you!
Signed,
3000+ American soldiers who have died because Bush has the brass balls to send them to do his bidding in a war he made up for reasons history may never know.
If waterboarding isn’t torture, perhaps it would be good, solid discipline for disruptive high school students. We can test the proposition with Diane Feinstein’s relatives.
re 5: It’s not a war. You’re an idiot.
re 5– Your big, badass pres. had his chance to go to war, but he chose to go AWOL instead.
He still is.
#5 –Prescott Bush made his fortune off the slave labor of German Jews in WW II. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Ann, you are a pathetic loser, and I think your relatives who are secondary school children ought to be chastised with waterboarding when they get out of line.
After all, it’s not really torture, and I’ll bet they’ll tow the line after a good waterboarding!
Let’s waterboard Alberto Gonzalez! It’s innocuous and it’ll save taxpayers tons of money in legal fees.
It’s the only fiscally responsible thing to do. And it won’t hurt him. We’ll have the truth out of him in no time flat.
“Mission Accomplished!”
What was accomplished? What was the mission? What is the mission now?
Sorry. That’s a secret!
“Mission Accomplished!”
What was accomplished?
Where is the body count parade by the MSM? I guess now this must be the new mantra. hehehehe
More like bi-FARTisanship. Schumer and Feinstein are enemies of the people.
Signed,
3000+ American soldiers who have died because Bush has the brass balls to send them to do his bidding in a war he made up for reasons history may never know.
Liberals will never know. Exactly. Liberals can’t even keep history straight in the last four months let alone four years. Liberals are morons when it comes to history. hehehehe
Sen Schumer is on record stating that he approves of torture if law enforcement or intelligence believe a person is about to due harm such as attacking world trade center or having a nuclear device in a major city. Please search the congressional record or senate hearing committee meetings after 9/11. At least he has guts enough to realize is later criticism of waterboarding was very hypocritical.
Diane Feinstein is not a Democrat. California is a liberal state. It needs two progressive senators, not just one. She is a huge disappointment. Bush’s claim that Democrats had established “too high a standard” for the Attorney General’s office by pushing Mukasey to commit on whether waterboarding is torture should have been enough for any good Democrat to simply say enough is enough. The Geneva Convention says waterboarding is torture. Our own military considers waterboarding torture. Why the hell can’t Democrats get some backbone and stand up to the immoral piece of shit that we have to call “President”?
“When the media establishment … calls for more bipartisanship, … they are talking about … Democrats caving …. It almost never happens the other way around ….”
What do you expect from the rightwing-controlled MSM? “Liberal media bias” is another WingNut (TM) lie.
#18 Doggie. Thirty nine American Soldiers died last month in a war based on lies, for greed, and lust for power. There’s your bodycount for you.
By the way, why did we invade Iraq Ann? Oh, I forgot. Greenspan said it was for oil. Of course it was.
This one is simple…….
Waterboarding is torture.
Americans who torture, or authorize torture should get prosecuted.
Sounds simple to me.
If “we” torture “them” they “they” have the right to kill all of us to protect “them” selves from us. “We” are no better than “them”. How does it feel to be just as evil as the people that blow up women and children on purpose? And you wonder why they fly planes into our buildings. (If that is what actually happened)
God I wish the Dems would stand up to these sicko torture loving bastards. America, the great experiment of rule by the people, is failing faster every day….. I smell our constitution burning. Good riddance for the Ann types!
Hey, “Ann,”
I’m having a waterboarding party tomorrow night. Care to come? Everyone who’s coming agrees that human rights are horseshit and all that matters is security. We all also believe that laws are for wussies. Killing children is fine if that leads to safety in our own gated community. Moreover, and you’ll like this one, we also believe that whatever wretched acts the most rogue regime anywhere commits set the standard for what the good old US of A can do. All’s fair in love and war, after all. What do you think, Annie girl, ready for a little waterboarding party?
Didn’t Schumer recommend Mukasey to the white house???????
What do you expect from the rightwing-controlled MSM? “Liberal media bias” is another WingNut ™ lie.
Yeah, with friends like Dan Blather(memogate),Snoozeweek(how to flush a Quran down a toilet and keep a staight face),NY Times(ony tell the truth on accident), CNN(Clinton News Network), MSNBC(more snooty nonsense by commies),..et all. We have all the bases covered. hehehehehe
What happens on ’24’ is fiction.
I remember when Bill Clinton was asked that question about the torture. The first thing he said was that a television scenerio like catching a terrorist who had set a bomb to go off in several hours was impossible.
The questioner persisted.
“Yes, but what if?”
Clinton says: “You bring up the most unlikely situation in the world and then ask me if I would toreture that person to save millions. Of course I would. BUT THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN.”
That’s the part you don’t hear about on the news. All you hear is: Bill Clinton said he’d torture people.
WingNutz Media, Inc.™ is so corrupt, it is hard to know where to star in debunking their bullshit.
#27 — And you play the lies like John Sebastian strumming a zither.
“Do you believe in magic?”
You may have core beliefs, but you are rotten to the core. You eat your master’s soiled Depends™ thinking them to be rare morsels — manna from on high….
Go gargle with razor blades!
28 & 29
Oh poor widdle victim….. it will be alright. Here put on your this widdle tin foil hat and everything will be all better. Ohhhhhhh
joe p @29
Hey, man, please don’t compare Jane’s Dog to John Sebastian, even when he might have been playing the zither. “Do you believe in magic?” made us feel good. Dog can’t ever do anything right–even when he goes to shit in the yard of the neighbor we don’t like, he ends up shitting on his own front porch. He just ain’t got no sense of direction. And, we have to clean up after him.
Clinton says: “You bring up the most unlikely situation in the world and then ask me if I would toreture that person to save millions. Of course I would. BUT THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN.”
Thanks God that Clinton didn’t get elected (selected) in 2000. Praise the Lord. We can thank Ross Perot for the results in 1992. Perot is an ASSHOLE!!!!
#31 — Upon reflection, it was an autoharp. It only looks like a zither.
#30 — “Here put on your this widdle tin foil hat and everything will be all better. Ohhhhhhh” The voice of experience? What a lame response.
Piper sometimes pisses me off, but you are just … a big nothing … a burnt marshmallow at the ‘somemores’ campfire of life. And you are not the least bit like John Sebastion.
Jane’s Dog @ 32:
You bring up a quote from Clinton, and say something about him not being elected in 2000. (Dusts off copy of the Constitution, looks at 22nd Ammendment, shakes head, puts back in desk for safe keeping).
So I gather from your comments in this thread that you don’t like liberals, you don’t like the MSM, and you really, really don’t like Clinton. Message received.
Support Chairman Bush and the glorious Republican Party! Oppose Clinton!
(I would futz with one of these old Cultural Revolution posters, but very few people on this blog read Chinese, so it would be a wasted effort).
Care to explain how you feel about torture, and explain why you think Clinton was wrong in making that remark? Go slow, think critically. Avoid using blanket phrases like “liburulz are t3h st00pid”.
Amen, Goldy. WTF?
Since our trolls aren’t much for history or irony, I’ll explain the Cultural Revolution reference.
The 文化大革命 (wen hua da ge ming or Cultural Revolution ) was a period in history where power was consolidated through the cult of personality. Mao Zedong was right because Mao said it. Lin Biao and Liu Shaoxi were wrong because they said it. The exact policy and it’s goodness or badness were not at issue. It was all about the person.
In one of life’s truly great ironies, Mao Zedong is a favorite of the American Right as a Really Bad Guy Who Killed A Lot of People. While Mao’s monstrousness is beyond dispute, it’s important to understand the forces which made this monstrousness possible. This doesn’t seem to be paraded as widely, perhaps because the comparisons with some aspects of the modern Republican party would be uncomfortable.
@9 Proud to be an Ass
Can you give me a referance that shows that WB was outlawed at Nurmeburg?
As to whther it is or is not torture, I note that it has been used in our own training programs and I have heard testimoney from people who claim it was done t them and was “terrible.”
To me the real issue here is that the AG should be honest . if he thinls WB is within the law then he should say so. Si,i;larly. if Cpngress wants ot outlawed they have that power.
If there was only some way to get waterboarding declared illegal…
The Democrats in Congress could care less about the terrorists, they want to score political points. What starts out like kabuki theatre ends up more like a bukkake video. Then Leahy has the nerve to complain when Mukasey declined to be the one in the middle.
SJ
I can give you a reference. It is called Wikipedia. Just look up “torture” or “waterboarding” See, researching is not all that hard, unless you are just too damn intellectually lazy.
And to Goldy’s original point – Mukasey was the candidate suggested by Schumer as a “consensus” pick. President Bush made the initial overture to the D’s by nominating him in the first place.
You could have gotten Ted Olson.
And it wasn’t outlawed at Nuremberg. Nuremberg is a place, where trials were held. Trials against Nazi’s for crimes against humanity. The law they used to prosecute Nazi’s were the Geneva conventions of war. Guess where those laws were agreed to? Geneva, Switzerland.
Am I going too fast, or using too many big words for you, Seattle Jew?
30
Poochie,
Don’t knock the tin foil hat. The one Bush has been wearing seems to be working. No brainwave activity has been detected.
Go lick your balls.
“What do you expect from the rightwing-controlled MSM? “Liberal media bias” is another WingNut ™ lie. ”
Study after study shows the liberal bias of the “main stream” media.
Your problem is with Schumer.
He has already stated his position on the record in 2004 that in certain cases, measures may have to be taken to ensure the safety of thousands of people.
There is no bi-partisanship on HA. The crowd here is left of Stalin.
I guess we should give the throat cutting, non uniformed, hiding behind women and children, hiding in Mosques, blow up innocent children Geneva convention protections?
This is why a HA Liberal can never become president….
#43 — What studies. Reference your assertions, Freshman.
If one Liberal takes a position that WingNutz™, Inc.likes, then it’s all over in the WingNutz™ cranial space.
WingNutz™ + “cranial space” = oxymoron
SJew @ 37: “Can you give me a referance that shows that WB was outlawed at Nurmeburg?”
Nurmberg was a trial. The nazi leadership was charged (and if memory serves, convicted) with crimes against humanity. The use of the waterboarding technique was presented as evidence against them.
However, since you don’t believe waterboarding is torture, I shall remember you position on this issue for future reference. For if you ever dare utter the words “moral values”‘ or the “advantages of moral absolutes”, or sneer at “moral relativists”, or continue to decry “pushing religion out of the public sphere”, I shall simply laugh in your face and call you out for the bullshitting hypocrite that you really are.
SJew somewhere above: “Si,i;larly. if Cpngress wants ot outlawed they have that power.”
We are a party to the Geneva Conventions. It is a foreign treaty. It is the law of the land. What is it about this that you do not fucking understand?
The fact that you even consider waterboarding as “maybe” legal is, frankly, contemptible.
Unfortunately the waterboarding issue isn’t the most troubling. What’s worse, in my opinion, is that he stated in his testimony before congress that he believes the President is not bound by the constitution if he feels that national security justifies ignoring the law. This the President free to ignore the next election and stay in office. Why would any member of congress, especially a Democrat approve an AG with such a belief. Hold dems who betray the constitution accountable.
If they’re not accountable under the law (WingNutz™,Inc.), most people will consider that they themselves are not accountable either.
It’s a prescription for anarchy.
If they try to Blackwater™ us into submission, we’ll just sniper them down. If they want terror to fight, they’ll have it in spades.
The FCC hearing on WingNutz™,Inc. being allowed to buy up all the media is on again. It will be at citty hall on Friday, Nov. 9th between the hours of 4PM to 11PM.
Be there or be square. The accessory of the day will be an ‘Impeach Bush’ placard on a stick.
http://www.mrc.org/biasbasics/pdf/BiasBasics.pdf
@43 here’s one
Let me know when you want more.
This issue isn’t very complicated, really. Torture exists solely because it provides those doing the torturing with immense sadistic pleasure. It is neither valid nor effective in generating useful information from subjects; its sole potential rests in the fear it creates in others that they may be forced to experience that range of physical and psychological violence, motivating them to more willingly conform to oppressive regimes. The US uses it, and advocates its use, for these purposes. It is only our media that has framed torture as something that provides good intelligence. Torture is nothing more, nor less, than inducing terror among a population. The fact that Bushco wants to continue to torture others, in violation of innumerable Federal, UCMJ, and international laws and treaties, suggests that Bushco is only interested in creating a state of fear in others about its machinations of power. Thus if you favor terrifying the world because you are terrified, i suppose you would want to be known as a torturer of your enemy.
That whole ticking time bomb scenario is really stupid. If subject A planted a bomb intending for it to go off, and is apprehended and tortured in the last couple of hours prior to the blast, why would Subject A suddenly have a change of heart about killing those that are torturing him/her???? What terrorist would give up the location of a bomb knowing that by being tortured, the torturer has become the terrorist, and thus more deserving of a successful bomb blast????
Torture schmorture! Who the hell cares about terrorists and their well being. Waterboarding is the LEAST of what they should be doing. How about throwing them naked into a 60 below freezer? Lowering them into a meat grinder until their lower legs are ground chuck? taking a blow torch to their nut sack. The possibilities are endless!!
Proud to be an Ass
Mike the busdriver
Errr ahhh .. I did not make the claim it was illegal
If you believe that that is fine but when you make a cliam you pought to heve the effin courtesy to be able to back it up.
FWIW, I did go to the Wiki and it doe snot cite law or caase law from Nuremberg, making WB illegal.
As for the morality, like many other things, i simply do not have the knowledge to make that decision. As I understand the law, it is fairly subjective. Since we use WB in out training, it kay be hard to argue that it is torture.
As to the morality, that is a hard call too. Personally I am totally opposed to capital punishment. It is hard for me to imagine anything that is more torture. OTOH, I have never understood why we consider it human to incarcerate a person for a decade or more but not humane to have a public flogging. Apparently, our society thinks a life long social branding as a sexual offender is just fine but that it is not fine to tatoo someone with AIDs to protect her/his sex partners.
In Abu Gharaib it was apparently considered torture to humiliate a man by draping panties over his head but we do not co0nsider it torture to amke folks undress in public at airports????
My own feeling on a lot these sorts of questions is that they are best le3ft undiscussed. If the guvmnt is responsible, I would guess at times laws do get broken. I would rather have good laws and occasionally have some patriot punished for her or his willingness to take the sword into the belly for her/his coountry.
SJ @ 55: “Errr ahhh .. I did not make the claim it was illegal”
Uhmmm???, yes. We are aware that you did not make that claim. Neither of us asserted that you made such a claim. Therefore, you only reinforce your essential dishonesty. The money quote from you is: “I do not think WB is torture” at post #4 above.
As to whether or not the U.S. considered waterboarding a crime, read the following:
“…in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.
“Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. “We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II,” he said.
The fact that U.S. personnel are ‘trained’ in this procedure by no means justifies its use. It is a crime. So why don’t you present some fucking evidence that it is not?
SJ: Try googling “third Genevea Convention”. See what it says about torture. Many of the proscriptions in the Treaty were derived directly from the prosecutions at Nuremberg. The Treay was ratified by the US Senate in 1955.
IT IS THE FUCKING LAW OF THE LAND.
What is it about this issue that is so hard for you to understand?
57 – Why the narcotic like obsession with defending “human beings” that want all of us (Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative) dead?
I say inflict the most brutal, painful, and unimagineable punishment on them possible!
@59: If Torquemada comes back, he’ll need people like you. Sharpen up your resume.
@58: Or, better yet, why wait? Go to Egypt and apply for a position. They tortured those who founded Al Quaida (Al Zawheri and others). Still do, most likely.
You’ll fit right in.
@57 …. wow, who knew terrorists cared about the Geneva Conventions??
you are such an idiot! why is it so tough for YOU to understand that terrorists dont care about laws?? why do YOU and every other leftie make the US soldiers confine themselves to laws when the animals they are fightint do not?
good GOD man! wake up!
61 – Its the most unfathomable backwards ass logic. We are fighting an enemy that knows no bounds of legality or humanity. Yet we are supposed to fight them while being lawyered to death. I don’t get the left’s unending obsession and preoccupation with how we treat this enemy. Oh, and my personal favorite bit of left wing logic is “we need to treat them ‘humanely’ to set an example for the enemy, so our troops are not subjected to the same treatment”. This would be laughable if it were not fucking sad and rediculous. This enemy ALREADY torturing and beheading our troops when they fall into enemy hands. As if al Qaeda is supposed to be shamed into treating our troops well. The left is beyond pathetic on this point.
“you are such an idiot!”
Now there is an unusual and persuasive argument.
@62: Read the Brothers Karamazov. See if you can learn to spell the author’s name. Get back to me.