Waterboarding is now as “American” as “Mom” and “apple pie”
The “distinguished jurist” told them in open hearings and in written communications that he could not call waterboarding “torture,” and reportedly, pravately expressed his fear that doing so might open the gates for some executive department and military officials to lawsuits or criminal prosecution.
Notice here that what is important to this “distinguished jurist” is not the fact that the laws of the United States regarding the use of torture may have been violated by highly placed government officials, or that subordinates were directed to violate the law, but that those officials must somehow be shielded from civil or criminal sanction.
No matter that the practice known as waterboarding has been around far longer than any of the doddering graybeards in the senate, has been the reason for the prosecution and imprisonment of soldiers and officers of the armies of many countries in this century and is proscribed by US law and international treaties.
The whackjob who calls himself “President of the United States” does not care about the law, in fact the very suggestion that the law might apply to him sends him into paroxysms of juvenile snorting and snickering.
His vice President and the former, now deposed Attorney General regard such things as the Geneva conventions as “quaint.” The fact the “Democrats” in the Senate expected the gang of criminal psychopaths in the White House to send up a nominee for the highest legal office in the land who would be inclined to uphold the law, was absurd from the beginning.
It has been just over a year since about a dozen of the same “Democrats” voted in favor of the infamous “Military Commissions Act,” a piece of “legislation” that reads more like it was enacted through the auspices a “Reichstag” of the last century than any American legislative body that I’m familiar with.
Chuck Schumer said it himself in a revealing oped in the NYT a couple of days ago, amid the firestorm of anger and disbelief over his announcement of intent to vote for the Mukasey nomination in the Judiciary committee.
Judge Mukasey’s refusal to state that waterboarding is illegal was unsatisfactory to me and many other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Congress is now considering – and I hope we will soon pass – a law that would explicitly ban the use of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation techniques. And I am confident that Judge Mukasey would enforce that law.
I fail to see where Schumer gains his expectations of confidence in the intentions of the “distinguished jurist” when the man has stated, in open public hearings, that he is unable to uphold the law.
Will we have to enact a series of bills specific to every heinous tortuous act, “The Extreme Removal of Fingernails Act” or the “No Genital Electrification Act of 2007?” The laws against torture are already on the books, written in the field manuals and etched into the history and legal traditions of the last century. Any child can understand that pulling a puppies ears, or swinging it by the tail is cruel and inappropriate behavior. Where shall we send our members of congress and other public officials to receive such training in fundamental humanity?
I am aware that the executive department of this country is in the control of a group of unrepentant thieves and worse, now I’m forced to face the fact that the Senate of the United Sates of America is populated with people who lack the understanding of right and wrong possessed by the average teenager.
Speaking to her support of Mukasey, Dianne Feinstein had this to say:
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said she was confident that Mr. Mukasey would be nonpartisan and that his refusal to make a judgment on torture without knowing all the facts of interrogation policy should not keep him from the post.
“This man has been a judge for 18 years,” said Ms. Feinstein, who along with Mr. Schumer provided the key supporting votes to push Mr. Mukasey through the Judiciary Committee. “Maybe he likes to consider the facts before he makes a decision.”
Is this woman as stupid as she sounds? The judgment on torture was made at Nuremburg,, in Tokyo, and in courts martial during the Vietnam war. Many many bestial acts, including waterboarding, were judged to be war crimes, to be criminal acts against humanity and people went to prison for their commission of or involvment in their commission.
“Maybe he just like to consider the facts…?.” No she’s not stupid, she’s just another transparent fraud, bought and paid for and masquerading as a servant of the people.
How did our “senatorial” presidential candidates perform in this test of principle, of fundamental morality? Pathetically. They did what candidates are expected to do in this quadrennial charade of electoral politics, they fell back on their old standby, abject cowardice. They simply abstained from voting on what may be one of the defining legal issues of our times.
Here’s their story:
All five senators who are running for president — Joseph R. Biden Jr., Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Christopher J. Dodd, all Democrats, and John McCain — did not cast votes. The four Democrats had said they would not support Mr. Mukasey because of his equivocation during the confirmation hearings over whether waterboarding is torture. Mr. McCain has also denounced the interrogation method but he issued a statement last week saying he would vote to approve the nomination.
Forty Democrats voted against this terrible nominee , enough to lend an appearance of the existence of an “opposition party,” but the fix was in at the start, most of the posturing was just that, a show, just smoke and mirrors.
There is not a single Democrat who voted for Mukasey’s nomination who should be retained for another term in the Senate, and of the candidates for president, we do not need another coward in that high office, we have suffered under the reign of a cruel and cowardly man for far too long and I’m afraid I see no one as yet who has proven themselves worthy of the office, nor of my vote, nor of my meager support.
Yesterday was yet another day of shame in America.
Bob Higgins
Related Stories and links:
Senate Confirms Mukasey By 53-40
Senate Confirms Pro-Torture, Anti-Constitution Mukasey As Attorney General
Waterboarding is not simulated drowning — it is drowning
