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Waterboarding Is Legal, White House Says
The assertion stuns critics and revives debate over the widely condemned interrogation technique.
WASHINGTON -- The White House said Wednesday that the widely condemned interrogation technique known as waterboarding is legal and that President Bush could authorize the CIA to resume using the simulated-drowning method under extraordinary circumstances.
The surprise assertion from the Bush administration reopened a debate that many in Washington had considered closed.
Two laws passed by Congress in recent years -- as well as a Supreme Court ruling on the treatment of detainees -- were widely interpreted to have banned the CIA's use of the extreme interrogation method.
But in remarks that were greeted with disbelief by some members of Congress and human rights groups, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that waterboarding was a legal technique that could be employed again "under certain circumstances."
Fratto said the nation's top intelligence officials "didn't rule anything out" during congressional testimony Tuesday on CIA interrogation methods, and he indicated that Bush might consider reauthorizing waterboarding or other harsh techniques in extreme cases, such as when there is "belief that an attack might be imminent."
For years, White House officials denied that the U.S. had engaged in torture but always stopped short of confirming whether waterboarding had been used. The administration's latest stance -- described by Fratto during the daily White House briefing -- was denounced Wednesday by key lawmakers. "This is a black mark on the United States," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "The White House is trying to give themselves as much of an open field here as possible. It says to others that we are prepared to use the same kinds of tactics used by the most repressive regimes and the most heinous regimes."
The White House comments came one day after CIA Director Michael V. Hayden testified publicly for the first time that the agency had used waterboarding on Al Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003. He also identified three prisoners, including self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who he said were the only detainees subjected to the method.
Waterboarding refers to a practice that involves strapping down a prisoner, placing a cloth over his face and dousing him with water to simulate the sensation of drowning. The technique has been traced to the Spanish Inquisition and has been the subject of war-crimes trials dating back a century.
The White House position on the issue is in some ways consistent with its long-standing efforts to expand executive power and resist attempts by Congress to rein in the president's authority.
Still, the decision to reignite the debate over waterboarding struck many in Washington as peculiar. The White House had previously argued that any discussion of CIA interrogation methods would only aid the enemy. Further, the CIA halted its use of waterboarding nearly five years ago. Calling renewed attention to the issue risks drawing fresh criticism from other countries at a time when the United States is seeking to shore up its image abroad.
The issue also has been divisive politically for Republicans. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, now the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, has led efforts to outlaw waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods previously employed by the CIA.
In a recent GOP presidential debate, McCain said it was inconceivable that "anyone could believe that [waterboarding is] not torture. It's in violation of the Geneva Convention. It's in violation of existing law."
The leading Democratic contenders for the White House, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, have taken similar positions.
Largely because the presidential candidates are consistent on the issue, many experts consider it unlikely that the CIA would resume using the method, because agency operatives would fear prosecution under a future administration.
"On Jan. 21, 2009, there's almost certainly going to be a new president who understands that waterboarding is not only wrong but a very serious crime," said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director of Human Rights Watch.
However, Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey, challenged by senators to rule on the legality of waterboarding, declined last month to say it was illegal, even though he said he would consider it torture if he were subjected to it.
Congress has passed two laws -- the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005 and the Military Commissions Act in 2006 -- that ban the use of harsh interrogation methods and require all U.S. agencies to comply with the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions in their treatment of detainees.
In addition, the Pentagon published a new Army field manual in 2006 that limits interrogation techniques and bans harsh methods, including waterboarding, hoods and mock executions. And the Supreme Court in 2006 struck down the Bush administration's system for holding and prosecuting detainees, saying it failed to provide protections under the Geneva Conventions.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the Republican sponsors of the 2006 Military Commissions Act, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that at the time the bill was passed he was assured by the Bush administration that the law would specifically prohibit waterboarding.
But Fratto appeared to contradict that, saying that the Justice Department had reviewed waterboarding and "made a determination that its use under specific circumstances and with safeguards was lawful." The CIA is not currently authorized to use waterboarding, he said, adding that "we're not going to be able to speculate on what might be the case in the future."
Fratto outlined a series of steps that would be required before waterboarding or other coercive methods would be approved. He said that the CIA director would have to make a proposal to the attorney general, who would have to review the interrogation plan to determine whether it would be legal and effective.
"At that point, the proposal would go to the president; the president would listen to the determinations of his advisors and make a decision," Fratto said.
Fratto's comments echoed statements by Hayden as well as Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. In referring to special circumstances under which more aggressive methods might be authorized, administration officials may be making the case for a kind of sliding scale for detainee treatment.
Malinowski said the administration may be seeking to define a loophole in international laws banning prisoner treatment that would "shock the conscience." That standard, the administration might argue, could shift dramatically if there was reason to fear the country was in danger of imminent attack.
But even so, McCain and Graham recently signed a letter to Mukasey saying that it was "beyond dispute that waterboarding 'shocks the conscience.' " And other experts said it would be more difficult to make such interpretations of the Geneva Conventions and other standards.
Feinstein has sponsored a provision in a pending intelligence bill that would require the CIA to abide by the stricter interrogation rules in the Army field manual. The measure has already passed the House and is expected to be considered by the Senate in the coming weeks. Bush has threatened to veto the bill.
During Tuesday's testimony, Hayden said that depriving the CIA of enhanced techniques would place America in greater danger. After the hearing, a senior U.S. intelligence official argued that waterboarding should not be considered torture because the U.S. military has subjected its own personnel to the method to prepare them for the possibility of being captured.
"Tens of thousands of American Air Force and naval airmen were waterboarded as part of their survival training," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We don't maim as part of our training. We don't mutilate. We don't sodomize. Those are things that are always bad. . . . Intellectually, there has got to be a difference between [waterboarding] and the others; otherwise we wouldn't have done it in training."
© 2008 The Los Angeles Times
96 Comments so far
Show AllThe one bizarre thing that never gets challenge is how is it that the Administration is able to decide this on their own? They get their pet lawyers to say something is legal, and it suddenly becomes legal?
If I can pay a lawyer to tell me that its legal to rob a bank, then does that mean its legal for me to rob a bank?
Lawyers can issue ADVICE as to whether an action might be legal or not. But that eventually is supposed to be decided by a court. At least that was the idea in the old checks and balances system that our Founding Fathers established. So the Justice Dept should be able to ADVICE that they think waterboarding MIGHT be legal. But anyone who follows that ADVICE should be doing so with the risk that this ADVICE might be wrong.
The old saying is that 'ignorance of the law is no excuse.' To me, the same would apply to following the bad advice from a lawyer. Its no excuse that would get you off from having committed a crime by following that bad advice. At the very best, you might get a judge to consider it during sentencing as a mitigating factor.
So, how is it that this White House is constantly saying that their pet lawyers in the Justice Dept have made something legal for them just by saying so?
Wow, in that case, Bill Clinton was an idiot. All he had to do was to get his pet lawyers to say that lying to a grand jury was ok, then he could have avoided his hole impeachment thing.
America's official government has no pride, no brave and no decency.
If this stands our nation will be doomed and it will be well deserved.
This is just the tip of an iceberg. The legal memos and military orders that this is camoflauging are very likely classified and compartmentalized to the point that the US public and journalists will never see it.
Go watch the Frontline documentary, Cheney's Law, especially chapters 2 and 3 of the PBS.org online version, for some more insight on how this administration operates, end-running the law and the constitution.
Meanwhile Gates and Rice are busy chastising NATO members for not sending more troops to Afghanistan. And are particularly criticizing Merkel for not sending more troops, to be positioned in the South where the fighting is tougher.
With their heavy horrendous history to bear can anyone imagine German troops fighting in the South alongside Americans now saddled with our own current ugly history of prisoner abuse, torture, and waterboarding specifically. Bush is already lucky there are any German troops in Afghanistan at all!
Waterboarding is drowning. OF course US military personnel who experience it as part of their training know full well that their "torturers" won't let it go full course. But any prisoner would be a fool to think it might stop before he dies.
People in the administration are watching too much TV and not remembering what a gang of smart terrorists pulled off using box cutters. Do we really think there would be some people hanging around to be picked up and tortured real quick a few hours before an imminent attack?
The timing on this is very strange. One can only wonder if this is some sort of backhanded way of positioning the Bush Administration on the side of the other, non McCain, candidates for the Republican nomination. Otherwise, what could possibly be the point in voluntarily making public this vile position?? Given the level of secrecy of this administration, there has got to be some nefarous reasons. I look forward to the other posters coming up with some meaningful speculation.
What is there to be surprised about? Bush cannot remember of ever making a mistake, and his great administration has never broken any laws, so we are in fine shape. Everyone should just be happy and be glad we have been taken care of.
Of course, "waterboarding" is a euphemism. "Water torture" is the proper term. Now that the President has declared it legal, in spite of the many laws that make it a felony, we Americans are now facing yet-another moral and political and psychological test.
In his intimate and personal memoir called Defying Hitler, Sebastian Haffner, describes the similar test that the German people failed in the early 1930s. He wrote:
[Of the boycott of Jewish businesses and mass-firing of Jewish employees . . .] "The fact that this was possible also speaks against us. Our reaction to the experience of fearing for one's life, and being totally at the mercy of events, was only to try and ignore the situation and not allow it to disturb our fun. . . . it is one of the uncanny aspects of events in Germany that the deeds have not doers and the suffering has no martyrs. Everything takes place under a kind of anesthesia. Objectively dreadful deeds produce a thin, puny emotional response. Murders are committed like schoolboy pranks. Humiliation and moral decay are accepted like minor incidents. Even death under torture only produces the response 'Bad luck.'"
(Describing April 1, 1933, p. 155, Defying Hitler, Sebastian Haffner.)
We all know how that turned out for the Germans by 1945.
It may be that the fall of the Dollar is, at least in part, due to the feeling of disgust people around the world have about the policies of the nation it represents.
There are important questions.
We already know the "response" of the Democrats. They questioned Mukasey. He admitted that if he were being "waterboarded" it would "feel like" torture. But he wouldn't admit is WAS torture. Why? Everyone in the room knew Mukasey was covering the war crime of torture by the President. Sure, the Democrats complained. They argued. Did they DO anything? No. THEY DIDN'T ARREST HIM FOR COMPLICITY IN THE WAR CRIME OF TORTURE. That means they did, essentially, nothing. And they won't. Not to him. Nor to Bush. Nor to anyone but "bad apple" scapegoats.
But there is a more important question:
The question is, how will American progressives respond to this crime in the coming days?
People around the world are aghast. They are asking the questions that Haffner predicted people would ask of the German people in the 1930s: "What's wrong with them? Don't they see what's happening to them—and what is happening in their name? Do they approve of it? What kind of people are they? What are we to think of them?"
p. 185
Indeed. What will we do? What kind of people are American progressives? We shall see . . .
there's more going on here than they're letting us know. one has to wonder about a diversion tactic, like say the reported severing of international communication cables in the middle east, north africa and parts of asia. or something more sinister.
The announcement that Torture is legal means that America as we knew it is gone. Facism is firmly seated and this coming election is/will be an absolute joke.
It won't be long before the internet will no longer be a safe place to express opinions if it isn't already. I highly suggest that an alternative method be sought (similar to the Christian fish thing) as warped as that may sound. Is there a city or town in Southeast USA that is mostly progressive?
In his book "AT the Mind's Limit" Jean Amery wrote: "Whoever has succumbed to Torture can no longer feel at home in the World. The shame of destruction cannot be erased. Trust in the World, that already collapsed in part at the first blow, but in the end, under Torture, fully, will not be regained".
Primo Levi wrote: "The Nazis tortured as did others, because by means of Torture they wanted to obtain information for National policy. But in addition they tortured with the good conscience of depravity. They martyred their prisoners for definite purposes, which in each instance were exactly specified. Above all, they tortured because they were Torturers. They place Torture in their service. But even more fervently, they were its servants".
Jean Amery who was tortured by the Nazis, died by suicide. Primo Levi, who survived Auschwitz - Birkenau died by suicide. They could not bear to live in this world any longer.
For the rest of us in this world, it has become obvious that the United States of America in its actions now rivals the Nazis in Germany in the 1930's and Stalin in Russia in the same time period. A rogue, aggressive, murderous and bullying State. And we wonder why the rest of the world hates us!
Dubya, Cheney, & Co. purposely let this slip on Super Tuesday because they knew the Corporate Mass Media would be fixated on the "horse race" election results. There is also the element of "we're on our way out, so we don't need to obfuscate as much anymore." In any regards, this is another new low for an administration that has not lowered the bar, but buried it.
the timing may be related to this: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/07/6917/
CIA Director Michael Hayden admitted that in December 2007 amid a public debate over the use of "waterboarding" on detainees and whether or not the technique — which simulates drowning — constituted torture. At that time, Hayden said that only a few prisoners were ever subjected to "special interrogation techniques," which can include waterboarding, and that nothing was recorded on video after 2002. That claim is now coming under additional scrutiny, in part due to a classified briefing that will be delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence this Friday
A president who states unequivocally that we don't torture and then states that torture is legal. A president who signs into law several laws which he then states he has no intention of obeying. A president who deprives "enemy combatants" (whom HE identifies) of Habeas Corpus. A president who invades nations illegally and occupies them to rob them of their national resources. A president who wiretaps and spies on the citizens of the US. A president who lies through his teeth whenever he wishes, and is as nasty and arrogant and vile as they come. Why would he do that? I am a rational human being, I think, but I am coming to the conclusion that Bush/Cheney have no real intention of leaving office and that they are positioning themselves to declare martial law and institute the takeover that Bush's grandfather tried during Roosevelt's presidency. Time will tell.
Bush tortured people so therefore it must be legal.
Lets not only waterboard them, but put it on HBO as a pay per view with all the income from it
going to paying off the national debt.
Cool, let's waterboard Bush and Cheney.
Simulated drowning is not what the term implies. It is drowing, or more precisely "suffocation". When the cloth is put over ones' face and mouth it inhibits the oxygen needed to breath. When the water is then poured over the covered face, it suffocates the person, so their is no "simulation" here, its downright torture.
ncycat {QUOTE}: '... but I am coming to the conclusion that Bush/Cheney have no real intention of leaving office and that they are positioning themselves to declare martial law and institute the takeover that Bush's grandfather tried during Roosevelt's presidency.'
I long ago came to the conclusion that there will be no elections in 9 month's time, but for different reasons.
Forgive my ignornance, but what takeover did Grandpa Prescott try? Do you have books / on-line sources that can give me some more information on this? Many thanks.
This is an ominous sign for the American people. No government official who seeks re-election can be pals with Bush. There will be a scramble for the door and the only people left in the room with Bush will be the most despicable tyrants who share his views. How will American soldiers who are captured be treated? Hopefully they will put down their weapons and make their way back home - then what will the commander in chief do with nobody left to command?
Folks, waterboarding authorized by Bush is absolutely legal because of one of Bush's signing statements.
As has been identified that waterboarding is not simulated drowning, rather controlled drowning, has any lawyer equated waterboarding with first-degree attempted murder? If this is correct, could charges of first-degree attempted murder be brought against Bush?
What do you expect? Witch(read homegrown terrorist) hunts would not be complete without waterboarding (the punishment meted out at the Salem Witchhunt trials)!
America's version of Taliban/Wahhabi justice is now complete.
McCarthyism rides again - only with more dire consequences than just 'blacklisting'.
I guess now we can pass SR1959 (5?) - the Homegrown anti-terrorism act. Bush will use a signing statement to add waterboarding, I'm sure.
Remember, there are Halliburton/KBR camps to fill!!!!!
Why didn't the Democratic electorate rally around Kucinich? He's the only candidate to introduce articles of impeachment and stated that the invasion of Iraq is a WAR CRIME! Do you think Obama or Clinton will go after these criminals if either one of them win the White House? Who cares if Dennis is short and funny looking. Is it not about the issues? Just look at the voting records and who's contributing. Duped again...
Hillary Clinton was for legalizing waterboarding before she was against it.
"Clinton Backs Off Support for Torture" (9/27/07 [reported by Ben Smith on Politico])
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/6050.html
In 2006 both Hillary and Bill independently expressed support for legalizing waterboarding by the President (see article above). Husband Bill has never retracted this. Hillary appeared to retract in Sept 2007 in a debate in New Hampshire.
But on Oct. 10, 2007 Hillary "clarified" her newfound change to being against legal presidential waterboarding and other forms of "enhanced interrogation" by saying she wasn't sure and would have to look into it further after she was President before she could say what she would do.
"Clinton was similarly vague about how she would handle special interrogation methods used by the CIA. She said that while she does not condone torture, so much has been kept secret that she would not know unlesselected what other extreme measures interrogators are using, and therefore could not say whether she would change or continue existing policies." -- Washington Post, 10/10/07
Contrast Obama:
"I have been consistent in my strong belief that no Administration should allow the use of torture, including so-called 'enhanced interrogation techniques' like water-boarding, head-slapping, and extreme temperatures. It's time that we had a Department of Justice that upholds the rule of law and American values, instead of finding ways to enable the President to subvert them. No more political parsing or legal loopholes." -- Barack Obama, 10/29/07 [quoted on TPM Central website]
I keep waiting for the 'imminent attack' phase to begin. With all the laws passed so far martial law is not far away.
time to either leave or take to the streets- A la Gandhi and Badshah Khan.
With the recession in full bloom - the conditions are so reminiscent of 1932 Germany.
Elections? HA !
ncycat--
i've had the sense for years now that the administration has something of the sort planned, either a martial law-based putsch or some way of accomplishing a takeover ostensibly within the bounds of law (forcing legislation allowing unlimited terms in office, then stealing the next election, and the next, and the next...).
cheney spent the 1980's doing drills for running the country from an underground bunker in a time of "emergency." (i don't have links, but it's well-documented. atlantic monthly, among others, ran a story on it.) it's hard to imagine someone like him wasting all that valuable experience.
i think all this administration's blatant unlawful acts have been done not only to accomplish specific goals, but as a way of laying the groundwork for a putsch--by successively lowering our standards for acceptable behavior by government and breaking down our will to resist.
it seems to have worked pretty well, so far.
that said, i'm voting for obama in the hope that i'm just paranoid and in reality, everything's peachy.
Goebbels. (1897-1945)
Warmth and humor were the first to fall.
Then feelings, one by one, escaped his head.
Honor went underground and friendship fled
Without a forwarding address.
Respect, underpressure, had resigned.
Pity, captured, rapidly confessed.
Her blood was splattered on the nearest wall –
which left more room for murder in the mind.
Six million marched to chambers of a heart
where milk of kindness, drop by drop had drained,
till only pills of cyanide remained.
And then the final end was free to start.
The more torture the merrier.
The more oppression the happier everyone will be.
Stalin and Hitler must feel a little bit of vindication in that they don't seem so bad. After all, we are following the same policy, if not at the same degree yet. But over the last 25 years, how many civilians have died as a result of US policy? If you consider South America and the success of the US sponsored dictators, it's not too shabby.
I'm looking forwear to more of the same. It doesn't matter, Obama or Hillary or McCain. It's all the same.
Where do you sign up for the swastikas?
And we can all be proud because the smelly hippies and peaceniks haven't been able to corrupt the US military process from carrying out their water duties.
I'm so happy I could dance... on the head of some terrorist.
Life is beautiful. http://www.wordsareimportant.com/lifeisbeautiful.htm
so it goes...
mikec here's my guess at scenario:
late Oct. GWB gets assasinated, Cheney takes over, declares martial law, suspends the election, moves to the bunker, mobilises Blackwater to keep the peace since the NGs are in iraq. There will no doubt be an Iranian connection to the hit. Terran will burn.
up here we really need to get Harper out. otherwise we will be Austria to the US' Germany...
Ach! Der Fuehrer has spoken! Heil Bush!
If We the People and our alleged representatives cannot see this as the signature of this corrupt, criminal, cynical regime and impeach, remove, try and hopefully condemn the whole damned gang, then we deserve what we get, i.e., Nazi Germany redux.
The photo which accompanies the article is NOT waterboarding. In waterboarding, the subject (victim) is secured to a plank, usually naked, and fully immersed in a large vessel filled with water. The torture victim is held under water just to the point of drowning. Don't worry; the perps are well-trained to recognize this critical point. Nobody ususally dies. After repeated dunkings, the victim usually voids their bladder and intestines......into the water. The next time they are dunked, they ingest water contaminated with their own urine and feces. I suugest we perform this 'non-torture' on all residents of the White House and Congress. After repeating this process several hundred times, the White House and Congress should be permitted to change their definition of "torture".
This defense of state torture is disgusting. It's consistent with the idea that the detainees are not necessarily "people".
For the intelligence official to say that doing it as a training excercise makes it acceptable is a strange twist of logic.
And Hillary had to think this over...
iowairish:
Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml
for details on the program that exposed the plot by the richest men in America to overthrow FDR in 1933 and institute a fascist regime.
iowairish, try kevin phillips' "american dynasty" for just about all the sickness one can handle re: the bush family. sadly, it ain't over yet.
WTF, you've raised an important point: even the presumably progressive media such as pacifica are repeating the same formula (waterboarding="simulated drowning") when clearly it's actual drowning under controlled conditions, which may or may not proceed to its normal conclusion at the sole discretion of the torturers. proving intent ("mens rea") in your hypothetical case could be a problem, but it might be worth a shot.
along those same lines, i hear the phrase "the war in iraq" roll easily off tongues from left to rabid right, when it's clearly an occupation---shrub himself declared the "war" over from the deck of that aircraft carrier.
words matter. in the latter case, since the UN charter states that an occupied nation has the right to resist, an impartial observer of events in iraq would favor the word "resistance," with its historical hero imagery, over the more pejorative "insurgency" to describe the opposition to US forces and their dwindling number of allies.
Bush and Cheney are exposing this so they can cover their a**es once they leave office. They are doing what they always have done to the Congress and American voters: wave their middle fingers at us and say "try to arrest us." They have insulated themselves with the top attorneys in the country so if anyone tries to sue them, the case will take years to see the light of day, if it ever does. It is their arrogance and abrasiveness at its apex, yet again. They know nothing can or will happen to them, so boldly declare that we can torture...er waterboard suspected terrorists.
At the same time, I think 4thefuture is on to something by saying that it is a shot at McCain because they know he does not support torture, and if as POTUS he declares it torture, Bush and Co. go to jail. They certainly cannot let that happen, so sabotage McCain, Huckabee moves to the front, and Jeb slides in as V.P. or vice versa.
Burning witches at the stake, slavery and debtors prison were once legal too. This torture issue will pass. It might be another hundred years or so till it does. Lets all vote green this Novenber, or write in Ralph Nader and put an end to end this type of thing.
McCain has already won for the Repug ticket. No one can possibly cacth him.
Let's waterboard Bush and see how he likes it!
The UK has approved the extradition of Abu Hamza al-Masri to face terror charges in the US. He has two weeks to appeal. (See BBC) What are the chances that declaring the process legal provides cover for waterboarding him?
Cruelty has no bounds among the sick barbarians who continue run loose in our White House and our Congress.
Can the US now extradite prisoners from western democracies? There is no guarantee they will not be tortured. And given that Bush has made this statement, it would be hard to prove otherwise.
Out of their own mouths...
What more do you need America??
Bush, Cheney and Co gang raping children on the White house lawn??
Jeezuz.. You get what you deserve, but what did the rest of us do to to deserve these fuckers??
the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity KNOWS sodomy is part of recruit training. If that's denied, what can be believed?
"Let's waterboard Bush and see how he likes it!" I assume you say this because you think waterboarding is torture. So do I. The difference is that I don't want to subject anyone to it, because it is torture. That is the difference between me and Bush. And anyone who wants to harm another human being.
Pardon my reversion to my street ed., but america is becoming one fucked up country. If the people of america do not rise to the occasion, and straighten out your elected officials, and reign them in, you will all have to take direct blame for what is going on, and you will lose whatever credibility you have left with the international community. It's time to clean house.
Either shit, or get of the pot!
The UN have long been sidelined.
The Geneva Conventions have been dumped, labelled 'quaint', old fashioned and innapplicable under the conditions of the GWOT.
Domestically, waterboarding now has the sanction of the state.
Is torture legal? It is now, there are no organisations, bodies or constituencies that the US subscribes to, that can gainsay.
If libertarians long for a return to isolationism, this is the way to go.
Its time for IMPEACHMENT
OK, if there are ANY respectable journalists still working in the U.S. You MUST ask McCain if he concurs with Bush on this, since he implies he will carry on the Bush administration's present course!!
Sarcasm alert for this post.
Woo Hoo! Let's bring back all the old forms of torture as well as waterboarding!
Imagine the popularity of public crucifixions, after all that's just another form of breath control. To help pay off the national debt we could sell tickets! Finally the us gov't will be able to clear the backlog of prisoner's waiting for execution, all we need to do is tack them up to the power poles along the freeways.
Won't those evil blasphemers and liberals be surprised when the inquisition shows up in their neighbourhoods with enough firewood for a good old fashoned auto-de-fay. Ticket prices would be a bit lower as not too many people can stand the smell of burning human flesh.
Sarcasm over.
Ahhhhh! Gotta love bush and his claim that it's legal if he says it is. Of course that has been his life's experience. Has the man ever faced real consequences for any of his behaviour? Hopefully, we will not be extraditing anybody to the usa anymore. But knowing Harpy, somehow I think he'll be in favour of bringing bush's policies to canada...
Waterboarding? That's so old Katrina!
To take the people's mind off the economy
promise them bread and circuses
(take their bread & murder more Muslims)
"During Tuesday's testimony, Hayden said that depriving the CIA of enhanced techniques would place America in greater danger."
More of the same twisted logic. Of course condoning and pacticing torture breeds anger and hatred and places America in greater danger. Not to mention the wildly unreliable information obtained from torture.