The judges have ruled. See the article here on that subject. The prisoners in Gitmo are not humans the judges ruled and torture of them is Okay ___ as long as they are not on United State's soil. Then they gain "humanhood" and torture would be illegal. How stupid does one have to be, to be selected to be a judge?

Ha!!! Was it a cover up? That's a joke question, right? I mean, it IS obviously a cover up...right??

Perhaps the first step in this fiasco should be for Congress to do what Attorney General Mukasey suggested: Have a simple vote in Congress on whether or not waterboarding should be considered torture in the United States. Of course this would all be silly since the entire civilized world (except the United States apparently), KNOWS that waterboarding has been considered torture since, oh gee, maybe the 14th century or so.

But you've got to love the quote from Mike McConnell, the nation's intelligence chief, in The New Yorker magazine a few days ago regarding waterboarding, "Waterboarding would be torture if it was used against me or if someone under interrogation actually was taking water into his lungs." But for "legal reasons" he declined to say whether the technique categorically should be considered torture. Uh-huh.

Besides all the torture meshuga discussions I am just as interested in discovering what the victims of our criminal behavior actually SAID!!! Especially about 9/11. The word on the street is that Zabayda? sang big time about major Saudi connections high up in the royal family...he gave personal cell phone numbers to his torturers and interestingly enough four of these individuals ended up DEAD within a few months.

So, beyond the torture, perhaps it is all these juicy tidbits of information that "the powers that be" don't want the world to be chatting about in bars and during play off half-times etc. Inquiring minds REALLY want to know the TRUTH! Let's have at it, shall we? After all, the American people financed all this ugliness, therefore we have a right to know. The future of the Republic is hanging by a thread after we've lost all our civil liberties due to 9/11.

Remember, "They did this to us because they hate our FREEDOM." And what then was the result? The "terrorists" won. And we lost almost all our freedoms. The final legislative knife in our backs will be when the Senate passes "The Stifling of Dissent Act (SB 1959). That will go FLYING out of Lieberman's committee for full Senate passage. Of course we can probably count on Obama not bothering to show up for the hearings in the Committee he sits on. And probably Clinton and McCain will not bother to vote as well.

Which, in my mind, makes everyone of them unfit for the highest office in the land.

The ruling elite apparently thinks that if white Americans are waterboarded it is torture, but if they're not white americans or if they're unwilling to kiss the butts of uncle sam, then it's ok - cause after all, we're the greatest and most important GD country in the world.

Some in the military and intelligence services are now regularly letting the Bush administration know that there are forces in the United States opposed to their dangerous and uncivilized policies. The strains at the top are clearly evident. I suspect that those at the top of the corporate and governmental structures are clearly aware that any attempt to create a national emergency followed by the imposition of martial law would be met with powerful resistance. Bush and Cheney's tails have been salted. Whether or not they have any sense of restraint left remains to be seen. This is a powerful drama.

One might think that it even might be more exciting than … anything on TV ?

Just call it torture. Ok... Let's stop denying it.

We can argue over whether torture is necessary or not (I believes it's not, is inhumane, and counterproductive), but you can't deny that waterboarding is torture.

Remember 33% of the population is A-OK if the Government tortures people, and the other 2/3rds will just cry and whine about it. So just come clean and bring yourselves as the governmernt to admit that it is in fact torture.

Look at the faces of those who try to deny that it is torture. Study them hard. They are the traitors. They are the ones that will rip the Constitution from your hands, spy on you, imprison you, wiretap you, and extort money from you. The line is definitely in the sand on this matter and those that support waterboarding are clearly the enemies of America. Crystal clearly.

it's now American to spy, torture, and harass the public.

Dubya, Cheney, & Co. have managed to do something "remarkable," they have made the USA into another grubby, Third World nation thanks to their incompetent governance.

""If it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it," added McConnell, the US director of national intelligence."

... but no mention of those who ordered it.... of course.

We ought to find ma way to force Bush, Cheney. McConnell, Mukasy, Gojnzales, and a few other administration leaders to be waterboarded, then ask them if it qualifies as torture. I am fed up with this hypocritical gang, who are willing to defy international norms and opinions, and American tradition, then try to deny their duplicity.

Where's Jesus?

I agree ejmurphy. When these monsters are put on trial and they try to lie and equivocate about the crimes they committed, just get out the boards and let the enhanced interrogations begin!

Bu$h the inferior and Shotgun Dick are big on pushing the exceptional USA. It is now, EXCEPTIONALLY BAD. The administration has ordered war crimes and countless immoral acts. No nation on earth has the capacity and will to do more harm.

Impeachment is the only hope for saving the country from being the worlds pariah for the next century. If we last that long.

I know people who actually have been water-boarded - and they consider it a heinous form of torture, even under the best of circumstances - the guys who endure it only as 'training' in special forces exercises. Listening to them tell about passing out and thinking it was the end for them - they didn't expect to be revived - is painful enough. So let's stop quibbling and let anyone who doesn't think it IS torture have a session at it first - experience is the best teacher.

Beyond classification, it is common knowledge that such tactics have been used by the US - along with the rest of the repetoire - since forever. It's just the real world, whether we approve or not. Get used to it - denying that the US uses torture (and always has) is infantile and unrealistic. This is pure arrogance - there is no 'moral high-ground' when it comes to conquering other people. If you're on top of the heap because you use terrorism to win, then you approve of torture and terrorism - period. That's just the way it is. The US is NOT a world leader - it is the world conquerer. And we will go the way of all empires - in due time. It took 75 years for Stalin's Police-State to fall - it may take that long before the US succumbs as well. It's just the path the US - and the rest of the world - has chosen. The rest of the world is not opposing the US - they'd probably do the same thing if they were in our place. And this has nothing to do with Right or Left, Capitalism, Socialism, or Communism - it's just reality. Grow up.

"Waterboarding, as McConnell described it, involves a prisoner being strapped down with a flannel over his face as water is dripped into his nose."

Would that be "dripped" with an eye-dropper that mimics a dripping faucet or dripped from a bucket of water being poured down someones nose?

Is waterboarding torture?

Does the sun rise everyday?

Huh well I'll be, I wonder if he would get upset if bushes mercenaries murdered his family?

Got any cartoonists out there? Here's a freebe:
Scene: cold block room w/single light bulb. CIA "interegation" room. An Arab being waterboarded. The agent pouring the water says, "OK, Abdul, I'm gonna ask you one more time—Who set up 9/11?". Abdul: "blubDickblubblub blubCheneyblubblub". Second agent with a clip board, to a third agent with the video camera: "Eh, that's what they all say the first few times…".
The little mouse in the corner says, "Must be a conspiracy"….
If you can draw it ,you can have it.
Cheers

There is a very dark and sad, but plausible case to be made that the torturing is not to make the war less dangereous or shorter for our troops, but to ferret out and neutralize anyone who has first hand knowledge of who the perps are and how the whole thing unfolded. It may also be plausible that OBL is still free because he has arranged one of those " if anything happens to me ..." letters like in the better spy v. spy movies. Can anyone come up with a way to connect the dots that is less painful to patriotic sensibilities? I hope so, because these thoughts are hard to bear.
Basic question: What would various perps do if they had the means and motive after pulling off 9/11? There are plenty of detectives, criminologists and psychologists out there who could speak to this conjecture. Let's hear from some.
peace.

barbaric!

McConnel and Fratto might try this: put one tablespoon of cayenne pepper into a bottle of Coca-Cola and then shake it well and shoot the foaming mixture into their noses. OMG! Torture! They might try Ginger Ale for a pleasant change.

Washington badly needs a washing.

Despite the comment of abbeybwood , the particulars of which I am unaware, every single comment from former intel officers notes that torture is simply useless in acquiring legitimate information. Under the pain of such inquisition the poor prisoner simply tells the interrogator anything he wants to hear, truth or not, usually not.

Another real problem is that over two thirds of those held in Gitmo or Abhu Graib were NOT captured on battlefields, were instead turned in for rewards. Some to eliminate business rivals, some to satisfy old feuds. So it is plausible to believe that many being tortured are innocents with nothing of a military nature to disclose.

Lastly, a nation that tortures has lost its soul. An electorate that elects those who allow torture is simply inept and not doing its job. The damage that Bush has done to this country will be decades in the unmaking, if even then.

armybrat has the only intelligent post on here. This is who we are. It has always been who we are...maybe not always but at least the last 100 years. Before that we at least kept our bad behaviour to our own continent. The only difference between this administration and past ones is this one is really incompetent at it. Past administrations have always given more lip service to world opinion and have marketed it better to the world. This administration has told the rest of the world they don't matter anymore and we are going to do whatever we want...whenever we want. People who want Clinton or Obama in power are just people who want the truth to be hidden in a professional manner. Honestly if given the choice between the current crop of mainstream candidates (leaving out Kucinich and Paul) and a third Bush/Cheney term...I would vote for Bush and Cheney. The rest of the world is moving away from the dollar and are beginning to form their own relationships. This is the best thing possible for the world. The US federal government is and has been the most evil institution on the planet since the fall of the Soviet Union. The only thing that is going to change that is resistance to its rule. The bad thing about Clinton and Obama is they might decrease that resistance which would be a bad thing for the world. Its time for the empire to begin collapsing. The sooner the collapse occurs...the better. Starving, angry, and hopeless Americans would be a good thing for the world.

>> snip
White House spokesman Tony Fratto refused comment on waterboarding: "We don't talk about interrogation techniques. And we are not going to respond to every little thing that shows up in the press."

Headline? BUSH DUBS WATERBOARDING A 'LITTLE THING'

Say no more...

hey.... i think it would be torture too! great minds think alike i guess.....

armybrat: yeah we know that things are always gonna be horrible out there in the real world.....but lemme tell ya: Pinochet was kept under house arrest for months, years. After thinking he had amnesty, a permanent senatorial seat, etc etc...and several Argentine generals just went to jail...don't laugh....this is big stuff for most of the perverts who end up running fascist states....we are making slow painful progress.

For whoever harvests the remains of this sorry techno experiment, our efforts will be important in resuming the road towards a sane human culture...

You are, armybrat, perfectly correct: humans have been torturing and killing each other for millenia. They have also been fighting wars with each other for millenia, usually for power and conquest and money. They have also, in the course of millenia, developed bigger and better weapons with which to fight their wars and kill each other. All of these things are real. But that doesn't make them right.

The problem is that humans have, because of their large brains, developed all sorts of advanced methods of killing each other without developing correspondingly advanced ways of restraining themselves from using them. Technological knowledge has outpaced biological evolution to the point where we now have the capability to destroy the world, but haven't learned how to stop doing so.

Maybe our elected "leaders" should read Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression, a book which explores innate tendencies toward aggression in various animal species, and how those species have evolved different ways of coping with their aggressive impulses so they don't wipe themselves out. Put two doves, which are fairly weak animals without powerful weapons of aggression like sharp claws or teeth, in a cage and one will eventually kill the other. Of course this wouldn't happen in the wild because the weaker dove would simply fly away. Put two wolves, relatively powerful animals with sharp teeth and powerful jaws, in a cage and if they fight the weaker wolf will deliberately expose its neck to the stronger. This will trigger an instinctive inhibition in the stronger wolf, who will then be unable to kill the weaker.

Humans are like doves, relatively weak animals without powerful weapons of aggression or correspondingly powerful inhibitions against killing our own, but we have compensated for this by using our brains to make the most powerful weapons imaginable. But we have no instinctive inhibitions to prevent us from using them on each other, and we can't just fly away from bombs. So it's high time we started developing some cultural restraints against using them, before we destroy ourselves. And maybe the first step toward developing such cultural restraints is to simply say that killing and torturing each other is wrong, instead of saying that it's okay because we've been doing it for a long time.

Is growing up admitting we've got a problem and trying to do something about it, or is it fatalistically saying there's nothing we can do about it because we've always done it this way?

ardee wrote:
Lastly, a nation that tortures has lost its soul. An electorate that elects those who allow torture is simply inept and not doing its job.

COMMENT:
My take is that a nation that tortures has lost its soul and an electorate that elects those who allow torture has lost its soul.