Waterboarding: Torture or valuable Sport for Prisoners needing Exercise?
Thanks to his opposition to Mukasey, Sheldon Whitehouse, our own junior Senator from Rhode Island, has been gaining a devoted following out here in the blogosphere. Here’s a recent evaluation from Joe Palermo:
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a former federal prosecutor and one of the best of the class elected to the Senate in 2006, eloquently asked the simple question on the Senate floor yesterday: "Whence cometh our strength as a nation?""Our strength comes from the fact that we stand for something. Our strength comes from the aspirations of millions around the globe who want to be like us, who want their country to be like ours. Our strength comes when we embody the hopes and dreams of mankind."Senator Whitehouse then went on to ask: "Will we trust our ideals?" Or "will we join that gloomy historical line leading from the Inquisition, through the prisons of tyrant regimes, through the gulags and dark cells, and through Saddam Hussein's torture chambers? Will that be the path we choose?"
Unfortunately, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have already chosen the path through the darkness of which Senator Whitehouse speaks. The question now is whether Senators from both political parties have the moral conscience and the will to stand up to an Administration that is determined to flout the rule of law and has already set our nation back decades in its relations to the rest of the world. Stubbornly holding on to the "right" of federal employees or contractors to torture people graphically symbolizes just how far we've descended as a nation under George Bush's rule.
Yet, as Jon Ponder points out in the Pensito Review, it is Ted Kennedy, Senator Whitehouse's veteran colleague from the neighboring Commonwealth of Massachusetts, who has called on his command of history to put this waterboarding issue in its proper context:
after World War II, the United States government was quite clear about the fact that waterboarding was torture, at least when it was done to U.S. citizens:
[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.
Mukasey’s non-answer has raised doubts among Democrats, and even some Republicans, on the Senate Judiciary Committee:
[The] Democrats on the committee signed a joint letter to Mukasey, making sure that he knew what’s involved, and demanded an answer to the question as to whether waterboarding is torture.
Then two days later, the doubts grew louder. Two key Democrats, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT ) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) both said publicly that their votes depended on Mukasey’s answer to the waterboarding question.
Then it was Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) who saw an opening after Rudy Giuliani refused to call waterboarding torture (”It depends on who does it.”). Most certainly it’s torture, McCain said. When pressed, he stopped short of saying that he would oppose Mukasey’s nomination if he didn’t say the same, but he added to the chorus of those who professed to be interested in what Mukasey’s answer to follow-up questions will be.
Yesterday, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said that if Mukasey “does not believe that waterboarding is illegal, then that would really put doubts in my own mind.”
[Sen.] Arlen Specter (R-PA) has also thrown in his lot of doubts and concerns.
Of course, if the past is a guide, Mukasey will easily win nomination, and nearly all these senators who have expressed concern will vote for him.Waterboarding has become an isssue because the Bush White House signed off on it as an interrogation technique — and thus moved the United States into the company of pariah states that permit torture — after the 9/11 attacks.
This really is a sad moment in our national history... an impeachment trial of Sick Cheney might cheer us all up!!!
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a former federal prosecutor and one of the best of the class elected to the Senate in 2006, eloquently asked the simple question on the Senate floor yesterday: "Whence cometh our strength as a nation?""Our strength comes from the fact that we stand for something. Our strength comes from the aspirations of millions around the globe who want to be like us, who want their country to be like ours. Our strength comes when we embody the hopes and dreams of mankind."Senator Whitehouse then went on to ask: "Will we trust our ideals?" Or "will we join that gloomy historical line leading from the Inquisition, through the prisons of tyrant regimes, through the gulags and dark cells, and through Saddam Hussein's torture chambers? Will that be the path we choose?"
Unfortunately, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have already chosen the path through the darkness of which Senator Whitehouse speaks. The question now is whether Senators from both political parties have the moral conscience and the will to stand up to an Administration that is determined to flout the rule of law and has already set our nation back decades in its relations to the rest of the world. Stubbornly holding on to the "right" of federal employees or contractors to torture people graphically symbolizes just how far we've descended as a nation under George Bush's rule.
Yet, as Jon Ponder points out in the Pensito Review, it is Ted Kennedy, Senator Whitehouse's veteran colleague from the neighboring Commonwealth of Massachusetts, who has called on his command of history to put this waterboarding issue in its proper context:
after World War II, the United States government was quite clear about the fact that waterboarding was torture, at least when it was done to U.S. citizens:
[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.
Mukasey’s non-answer has raised doubts among Democrats, and even some Republicans, on the Senate Judiciary Committee:
[The] Democrats on the committee signed a joint letter to Mukasey, making sure that he knew what’s involved, and demanded an answer to the question as to whether waterboarding is torture.
Then two days later, the doubts grew louder. Two key Democrats, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT ) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) both said publicly that their votes depended on Mukasey’s answer to the waterboarding question.
Then it was Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) who saw an opening after Rudy Giuliani refused to call waterboarding torture (”It depends on who does it.”). Most certainly it’s torture, McCain said. When pressed, he stopped short of saying that he would oppose Mukasey’s nomination if he didn’t say the same, but he added to the chorus of those who professed to be interested in what Mukasey’s answer to follow-up questions will be.
Yesterday, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said that if Mukasey “does not believe that waterboarding is illegal, then that would really put doubts in my own mind.”
[Sen.] Arlen Specter (R-PA) has also thrown in his lot of doubts and concerns.
Of course, if the past is a guide, Mukasey will easily win nomination, and nearly all these senators who have expressed concern will vote for him.Waterboarding has become an isssue because the Bush White House signed off on it as an interrogation technique — and thus moved the United States into the company of pariah states that permit torture — after the 9/11 attacks.
This really is a sad moment in our national history... an impeachment trial of Sick Cheney might cheer us all up!!!
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