CIA flap: Mukasey's 'first real test.'

Pelosi sighned off on the waterboarding. Just another hypocritcal democrat.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664.html?hpid=topnews

Mukasey doesn't recall his department's involvement in this matter.

How does a man (Mukasey) applying for the Highest Law Enforcement Post in the land suddenly forget that Waterboarding has been against the Geneva Convention since.... well.. since the Geneva Convention?!!?

Me thinks it's "Bush Republican Lemming Syndrome"

Democrats need to put the screws on Mukasey about this to find out if he's really a man of integrity or just "Albert Gonzales Lite".

I suggest that this administration call this torture technique "X-Treme Baptism" just for the sake of better P.R. This would attract teenage males as well as the religious fundies to their NeoClown fantasy world.

Terry....If Pelosi "signed off" on it...she was wrong, and so is torture.

Queen Bee Nancy Pelosi signed off on waterboarding and asked if it was tough enough.
Now, Illinois Dumbo Dickie Durbin ranks on poor Judge Mukasey. Durbin is always digging up dirt on Republicans but, he can't see the soot on his corrupt Democrats.Harry Reid's poll numbers are going down in Nevada just like Puff Daschle. He's pulled some underhanded land deals in Nevada.But, Dickie can't help it he puts his silver foot in his mouth. Poor Dickie. Jerry White, Springfield, IL

Now, Illinois Dumbo Dickie Durbin ranks on poor Judge Mukasey. Durbin is always digging up dirt on Republicans but, he can't see the soot on his corrupt Democrats.Harry Reid's poll numbers are going down in Nevada just like Puff Daschle. He's pulled some underhanded land deals in Nevada.But, Dickie can't help it he puts his silver foot in his mouth. Poor Dickie. Jerry White, Springfield, IL

Posted by: Jerry White | December 11, 2007 3:25 PM

Crazy Jerry,
Watch out for the black helicopters, "they're" coming to take you away.

Waterboarding should be available to all police departments in the country. This is a great inexpensive tool. Suspected of murder, tax evasion, speeding can easily be determined with a little torture.

Gotta love the new RNC talking point sadly parroted by sheeple Terry and Jerry White. "Buh buh buh, Pelose said it was ok!!" Wow, what a high standard.

What you rabid anti-American Party-Firsters fail to take into account is that Pelosi's signing off on anything has no bearing. If Clinton was doing what Bush is doing, liberals would be up in arms. The same can't be said for you two infinitely hypocritical knuckle-draggers, who lovingly trumpet the party line no matter how immoral or ineffective it may be.

Whatever happened to love of country being stronger than love of party? Clearly not the case on the fringe right wing occupied by Trickle Down Terry and Jerry "Get Off My Lawn" White (the one from Springfield, dagnabbut!)

Jerry White and others.

It doesn't make any difference who signed off on any of this (whether they actually did or not is another discussion). It ONLY matters if they have the authority to direct these actions. That's from the President on down. What anyone in Congress says about the issue is immaterial. They can't be charged.

Funny how you folks want to use agreement with the President to make things legal and disagreement with the President as not making any difference.

If the President gave the order to torture people, HE'S the one who will be impeached and go to jail, no one in Congress.

My one thought is "Where is Porter Goss ?"
I always believed he was in charge at the time in Question.

Jerry White, your queen bee remarks much like Jane (I mean John) D's make you sound impotent!!!

dogjudge, Congress has no authority to ban the CIA from waterboarding? That is absolute nonsense. The House and Senate are currently taking this up, with the aim of making the Army Field Manual, which forbids the practice, applicable to the CIA. This really begs the question raised by Terry - if Congress was aware of the practice in 2002, why wait until now to address it? I think the answer is because it wasn't politically expedient.

I understand you have strong opinions on this issue, but do you honestly believe Bush will get "impeached" and "go to jail" over this? By taking up the legislation now, Congress implicitly admits there was no law forbidding it before. Additionally, our opinions regarding what amounts to torture are irrelevant to the issue of whether Bush can be impeached over this. Last year, Congress passed a law giving President Bush, and President Bush only, the discretion to determine whether a given "harsh" interrogation technique amounts to torture, and thus, violates any international treaties. Obviously, Bush excercised this discretion and determined that waterboarding did not. The fact that you or I may disagree with this excercise of discretion is irrelevant; it was not our choice to make. I can assure you, impeachment over this issue is not in the cards, and never has been.

Herbie H.

Thank you for the reasoned response.

I didn't meant to imply that Congress didn't have the authority to ban waterboarding or any other technique. What I said, and what I meant, was that simply because members of Congress viewed what happened and may not have raised objections (conflicting statements about IF that happened) does NOT mean that Congress has authorized those techniques. Congress authorizes things by passing legislation. No other way.

As for your other points, I agree with quite a bit of them. From my perspective, when all of this came up, there should have been an uproar at that time. At best, the Democrats should have been jumping up and down when they took power at the first of the year. They've had other chances. CIA legal approval, head of the CIA, AG and others. They brought it up and then never followed through. They could have approved any of those folks and continued to pursue the waterboarding/torture issue, but they didn't. ARGH!!

What bothers me the most is the implications of all of this for future Presidents.

Many of the actions of this President have reached new levels of whether they are in fact legal, or not. Time and time again, the basic issues never get resolved. It does make one wonder if a President can just about be immune to anything he does in office.

Herbie H-

Direct from the Military Commissions Act you refer to:

"(c) Additional > Prohibition on Cruel,
Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.--
(1) In general.--No individual in the custody or under the
physical control of the United States Government, regardless of
nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel,
inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
(2) Cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment
defined.--In this subsection, the term ``cruel, inhuman, or
degrading treatment or punishment'' means cruel, unusual, and
inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth,
Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the
United States, as defined in the United States Reservations,
Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention
Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984.
(3) Compliance.--
The > President shall take
action to ensure compliance with this subsection, including
through the establishment of administrative rules and
procedures."

Anyone held by the United Sates of America, citizen or not, cannot be subject to vcruel or inhuman treatment in accordance with the 5th, 8th and 14th amendments.

Therefore if Bush says that waterboarding is acceptable for persons held by the CIA, he is also saying that it is acceptable to waterboard any American citizen being investigated for a crime.

Do you support that decision by the President?

The guy spilled his guts in 35 seconds. Its not as though we tortured him for hours and hours. This is not the same as medieval torture. And if it saves American lives so be it.

Dogjudge, I agree that Congress has never explicitly authorized waterboarding, but I think their inaction despite knowledge of the practice at least ignores the problem, and at most, condones it.

Luke, the problem with the MCA is that it prohibited several forms of conduct, but not waterboarding. I think you are making the assumption that waterboarding would be included in "Cruel, inhumane, etc. . . ", but it is in the discretion of the President whether it does. Section 6(3)(A) states: "As provided by the Constitution and by this section,
the President has the authority for the United States to
interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva
Conventions . . ."

Thus, the MCA was left vague as to whether waterboarding violates Geneva, leaving it to the President to make the call. I don't think I have to tell you what he decided.

As for if Bush condoning waterboarding for the CIA also implicitly authorizes waterboarding a shoplifter at Wal-Mart in Rockford, the flaw I see in that argument is that we are talking about apples and oranges. While the line that law enforcement cannot cross is somewhat vaguely defined, I think it stops short of the "enhanced" interrogation methods the CIA has been authorized to utilize on people who qualify as "enemy combatants". You do make an interesting point, though.

As for whether I personally support it, I think waterboarding qualifies as torture, and cannot be policy for anyone in this country. The two main arguments against this that I hear is that AQ doesn't follow Geneva so why should we, and the so called "24" scenario. The former I reject outright, because we cannot sink to their level. I have no sympathy for scumbags like KSM, and think the Iron Maiden would be too good for him, but we cannot sink to their level or betray our ideals as a country following the rule of law, not to mention the danger we could put our own soldiers in down the road. The "24" scenario is a much more difficult argument. If some scumbag had my family hostage, I knew I only had a short time to find them, and he wouldn't reveal where they were, I would want to hook his brain up to a freaking car battery until he spilled his guts. But this cannot be policy, and I believe torture has to be clearly outlawed. In my opinion, it should be implied that if the (hopefully) rare "24" situation arises with a WMD or whatever, the individual agent does what he has to do, and if the President pardons him from a torture prosecution, I would have no problem with it.

Paul Jaeger,

Two problems with your comment.

One. The time before talking is immaterial. Torture is torture.

Second, and much more important, you are also saying that whatever we do to these detainees is also acceptable to be done to our soldiers AND citizens.

So when you travel to wherever and they start waterboarding you, that's acceptable. Right?

Funny that Jim Oliphant didn't mention that Democrats knew of the waterboarding, and were enthusiastic about it, and Democrats were told a year ago the tapes were destroyed and not a peep from any of them. \

But, of course Oliphant is just another pretend journalist who gets his marching orders from Media Matters for CounterAmerica, sort of like his coverage of Fox News denying an ad but his silence when NBC did the same thing.

JohnD, the Swamp's resident two-bit trade rag "journalist" who has parroted every talking point every issued by the RNC, calls someone who acutally has a real writing job a "pretend journalist" is one of the funniest posts I've ever read. Keep up the comedy work you 25% deadender.

Ya see John D, we knew Democrat congressmen were not against water boarding. So Democrats voted against them, and where ever possible, defeated the traitors. republipukes on the other hand, believe that anything the republirtards do is OK, and will vote for them, always, even if it betrays the conscience of the US.

There is your difference; thinking, versus not thinking.

Herbie H.,

My answer to "24" (scenarios) is "Harms" (last four lines in the episode)...

“You took an oath,” chastises the medical examiner, Dr. Melinda Warner. “You don’t get to take a time out because we’re at war. Because it’s difficult to uphold. The oath was written for times like these.”

I thought the episode was so-so, but the last four lines were food for thought. So you know what I'm talking about (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6552.html.)

Actually, you touch upon an interesting issue. More my point. The media does play a huge role in how the debate is framed. Now I strangely understand why the many "if you were a parent and your child" or " a bomb is to go off in Chicago" tugging-at-the-heart-strings scenarios exist on here; we've got a bunch of "24" script writers posting on here. ; )

Your post was not typical (7:58) I like the way you broke it down. Thoughtful.
Personally, I don't understand how the "right wingers" argument went from we don't torture, "waterboarding" is not torture per say, to... even if waterboarding was torture or it is in fact torture we're OK with it. Waterborading went form being the next step to arguing for tactics that are harsh enough but not harsh altogether; available for a a small number of cases where it might be necessary. To the next step to arguing for torture all together; the go to tool. The way I see it is that torture is not acceptable for any reason. If waterboarding is torture it deserves the rap tied to torture. So far it has not been defined that way by the president. If Congress had a problem with it they should have took it up. As they have not. It is what it is- "not torture", but that doesn't mean I find them in the least wrong to probe. Water boarding is really a fine line between interrogations and torture on paper. I find it is possible for people to cross over that fine line, as fine as it is, in practice, in application. One people write and pass the laws, other use their discretion to enforce it. The only way we will know if we are meeting the standards or going above board in the discretion is if we probe. As different as the context behind interrogation is local state to feds to enemy combatants it plays out the same. Once you put your foot in the door, as justified as you may be, it is crucial that suspect events reports concerns (like destruction of tapes) are raised and followed upon. It is about power with responsibility. Without opposition there would be no over sight. Those are my thoughts,anyway...

After reading John D's usual drive by bumper sticker shock and awe posts littering ever thread on the issue now, it is BEYOND refreshing how you and dogjudje raised the debate.

S.E.R.I.O.U.S.L.Y