It still blows my mind. We need to debate torture.

fiver @ 1:

It still blows my mind. We need to debate torture.

if he says that it is, he’ll have to prosecute his boss….

With 2 Admirals and 2 Generals saying this……WTF is the problem! IT’S TORTURE….wheres McCain with his opinion?

tofubo @ 2:

fiver @ 1:

It still blows my mind. We need to debate torture.

if he says that it is, he’ll have to prosecute his boss….

There you have it!..Now we know why he’s willing to go w/o an AG!

How on earth can we(as a country) possbibly claim to have the high moral ground when we have essentially re-labled torture so that we can still use it.

I’d like to see some active JAGs add their names to this. Also about 538 voting members of Congress…

It’s absurd that it even needs to be said.

There is no “humane” way to “waterboard” someone. It’s torture. It’s ALWAYS been torture. It was torture when the Spanish Inquisitors did it, it was torture when the Japanese soldiers did it to allied soldiers during WWII, and it’s still torture when WE do it… no matter what method you use.

And had Saddam of used it on U.S. troops, these same neocons would of been screaming bloody murder.

I’m with fiver at #1. Can’t believe we’re having this discussion.

If it isn’t torture, why are they doing it to try to extract a confession? What is it, we’re trying to annoy them into compliance? The right wingers would have us believe that it’s just splashing people in the face. If that’s all there is to it, what would be the point? That’s supposed to make em talk?

If it’s supposed to create psychological stress, then it’s torture. If it doesn’t create psychological stress what the hell is the point?

Sorry, but if it weren’t torture they wouldn’t be doing it. Seems pretty obvious to me.

wily1 @ 5:

How on earth can we(as a country) possbibly claim to have the high moral ground when we have essentially re-labled torture so that we can still use it.

We can’t. That’s why torture is making a comeback around the world. If the US can do it, why can’t we?

miss_kitty @ 6:

I’d like to see some active JAGs add their names to this. Also about 538 voting members of Congress…

Miss Kitty, I’d settle for two members of the Judiciary Committee named Feinstein and Schumer.

I was hoping to find Rear Admiral James McHugh (former JAG of the Navy ‘82-’84) on the signature list. He used to teach at my school. Sadly, I just found out that he died in ‘04.

We must prevail upon Chairman Leahy to postpone the vote, indefinitely if necessary. The Senate simply cannot accede to this Administration’s lawbreaking any longer.

Confirmation is complicity.

I spent nearly a thousand dollars to help get Jim Webb elected and I’ll spend another thousand to see Senator Isabela Feinstein (D-Spain) defeated.

“Waterboarding is
inhumane, it is torture, and it is illegal.”

In one ear and right out the other. I mean how many years now how have people been screaming and hollering this stuff into their ears?

This war is Illegal! Torture is uncivilized! (Yawn-Got any money to contribute?)

Hey, hey, the JAGS complain
What the hell does Bush care
What the hell does Bush care
Hey, hey, the JAGS complain
He can waterboard them too

Face it. Adolph Hitler enjoyed the kind of uncontested power and immunity Bush does.

mudshark @ 3:

With 2 Admirals and 2 Generals saying this……WTF is the problem! IT’S TORTURE….wheres McCain with his opinion?

McCain was tortured while a POW and it messed up his cognitive processes. I really think the torture he went through made him susceptible to Stockholm syndrome, which is why he won’t abandon bush despite the humiliating debacle of South Carolina in the 2000 election campaign. McCain is living proof of the permanent damage that torture does to a human being.

As for the JAGs, I seem to recall the currently serving JAG’s wrote a letter about Gitmo, too, for all the good that did, way back when.

Only four retired JAG’s have signed the letter? Where the hell are the rest of them???

Lieberman-Feinstein-Schummer the axis of Zionists.

What’s worse than a phony soldier? A phony soldier who’s a lawyer. Why do they want the terrorists to win?

Well you don’t get much more fucking clear than that, do you?

Diane Fienstien can take her “difficult decision” and shove it up her ass.

PurplePatriot @ 19:

What’s worse than a phony soldier? A phony soldier who’s a lawyer. Why do they want the terrorists to win?

Wow - it’s really bad when I can’t tell parody from real nutbaggery.

I’m betting on Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders to vote no on Mukasey. So much for this being a Jew thing. I guess that doesn’t fit neatly some peoples narrative. When you focus like a laser beam on someones ethnicity when they do something you don’t like, there’s only one word to describe it: Racism.

Read the rationalizations of the neocons about waterboarding “not fatal if done right; pain, discomfort, humiliation OK; etc.”

Then ask yourself (or better, one of them) why not rape? I’m not joking. The same rationalizations could very easily and should be applied to allowing guards to rape detained “suspects” with inanimate objects. Or heck, just let the guards themselves. We seem to turn a blind eye to that in civilian society anyway; “if they’re in jail or prison, the probably had it coming” we say. I’m sure it would eventually “break” detainees, as the neocons trumpet about waterboarding and other torture.

This society has turned very cruel, petty, and twisted, and it did NOT start with this controversy. It has been on the boil for a while, just like racial inequality and quickly growing class inequality didn’t start with Katrina.

That is why we MUST not let the Democratic party move ANY further to the right. No one seems to be able to wake up and see how much ground (and sanity) has been lost already. I’m glad these gentlemen have decided to publicly stand against this. It IS illegal, and for a reason. And all those defending the practice already know that damn well.

They are radicals. And they are trying to change the country, permanently, to wear the face of fascism. It should be clear by now that they will do WHATEVER it takes to accomplish this. I really don’t think we should let them.

Let’s not forget, this is nothing new really. Torture has long been employed as a method in US foreign policy. Just ask the El Salvadorans, The Guatemalans, The Chileans and the Vietnamese.

Bravo for their clarity (the JAGs) . . . it’s time for Feinstein and Shumer to go

C’mon - what’s wrong with you people?

Waterboarding and other torture helps get confessions from terrorists and could save countless lives. You know, just like torture helped get confessions from all those people during the witch trials.

there not only high ranking military personnel…their Judge Advocate Generals…..that’s the same as an AG in civilian life..

swarmofkillermonkeys @ 23:

Read the rationalizations of the neocons about waterboarding “not fatal if done right; pain, discomfort, humiliation OK; etc.”

Then ask yourself (or better, one of them) why not rape? I’m not joking. The same rationalizations could very easily and should be applied to allowing guards to rape detained “suspects” with inanimate objects. Or heck, just let the guards themselves. We seem to turn a blind eye to that in civilian society anyway; “if they’re in jail or prison, the probably had it coming” we say. I’m sure it would eventually “break” detainees, as the neocons trumpet about waterboarding and other torture.

This society has turned very cruel, petty, and twisted, and it did NOT start with this controversy. It has been on the boil for a while, just like racial inequality and quickly growing class inequality didn’t start with Katrina.

That is why we MUST not let the Democratic party move ANY further to the right. No one seems to be able to wake up and see how much ground (and sanity) has been lost already. I’m glad these gentlemen have decided to publicly stand against this. It IS illegal, and for a reason. And all those defending the practice already know that damn well.

They are radicals. And they are trying to change the country, permanently, to wear the face of fascism. It should be clear by now that they will do WHATEVER it takes to accomplish this. I really don’t think we should let them.

absolutely brilliant assessment swarmofkillermonkeys
I wholeheartedly agree

Whatever politician thinks waterboarding isn’t torture needs to be waterboarded on live TV to show us how trivial it is. Otherwise I simply can’t take them seriously.

And don’t forget the infamous School of the Americas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....e_Americas

Controversy

The previous School of the Americas (SOA) was alleged to have committed state terrorism by the US military. In 2001 the Pentagon changed the school and its mission. The “The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation” (WHINSEC) was created for the post Cold War period. A bill to abolish the school with 123 co-sponsors was introduced to the House Armed Services Committee in 2005.[6]

The SOA has been accused of training members of governments guilty of serious human rights abuses and of advocating techniques that violate accepted international standards, particularly the Geneva Conventions. Graduates of the SOA include men such as Hugo Banzer Suárez, Leopoldo Galtieri, Manuel Noriega, Efraín Ríos Montt, Vladimiro Montesinos, Guillermo Rodríguez, Omar Torrijos, Roberto Viola, Roberto D’Aubuisson, Victor Escobar and Juan Velasco Alvarado.[7] [citation needed] Because many of its students have been associated with death squads, and coups in Latin American countries, the school’s acronym is reparsed by its detractors as the “School of the Assassins”.

WHINSEC in recent years has put into place a vetting system aimed as preventing human rights abusers from gaining a seat at the school. This system prevents any student from having a seat at the school if there are human rights abuse accusations against them or against any unit they were a member.

There is alleged to be an instance of an accused human rights abuser still attending the Institute. In 1992 the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recommended prosecution of Col. Cid Diaz for murder associate with the 1983 Las Hojas massacre. His name is on a State Department list of gross human rights abusers. Diaz went to the Institute in 2003. [7] [8]

[edit] Training Manuals

See also: U.S. Army and CIA interrogation manuals

On September 20, 1996, the Pentagon released seven training manuals prepared by the U.S. military and used between 1987 and 1991 in Latin America and at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA). These particular manuals are similar to lesson plans used by the school as far back as 1982 [9] and similar to those of Project X and KUBARK. According to Lisa Haugaard of School of the Americas Watch, these manuals taught repressive techniques and promoted the violation of human rights throughout Latin America and around the globe.[8] The manuals contain instructions in motivation by fear, bounties for enemy dead, false imprisonment, torture, execution, and kidnapping a target’s family members. Joseph Kennedy said “These manuals taught tactics that come right out of a Soviet gulag and have no place in civilized society.” The Pentagon admitted that these manuals were a “mistake”[9]

This is not rocket science. Like pornography, you know it when you see it.

and

what the hell

is schumer trying to

pull

Snowball Says: “I’m betting on Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders to vote no on Mukasey. So much for this being a Jew thing”.

That’s NOT the point Ruthless People made. It was: “Lieberman-Feinstein-Schummer the axis of Zionists.” Zionist, not Jewish. There IS a difference.

Guest Posted by Sean Hannity (’s ghost writer):

I haven’t read this entire post. Don’t have to … I already know what you liberals are up to. Plus, it’s just too many words. I live in the real world where action, not words, is required. I knew I could stop reading at the word judges.

You liberals. There you go again. You and your activist judges! Now your activist judges are advocating torture for generals, or something like that. Treason, plain and simple.

swarmofkillermonkeys @ 23:

Read the rationalizations of the neocons about waterboarding “not fatal if done right; pain, discomfort, humiliation OK; etc.”

Then ask yourself (or better, one of them) why not rape? I’m not joking. The same rationalizations could very easily and should be applied to allowing guards to rape detained “suspects” with inanimate objects. Or heck, just let the guards themselves. We seem to turn a blind eye to that in civilian society anyway; “if they’re in jail or prison, the probably had it coming” we say. I’m sure it would eventually “break” detainees, as the neocons trumpet about waterboarding and other torture.

This society has turned very cruel, petty, and twisted, and it did NOT start with this controversy. It has been on the boil for a while, just like racial inequality and quickly growing class inequality didn’t start with Katrina.

That is why we MUST not let the Democratic party move ANY further to the right. No one seems to be able to wake up and see how much ground (and sanity) has been lost already. I’m glad these gentlemen have decided to publicly stand against this. It IS illegal, and for a reason. And all those defending the practice already know that damn well.

They are radicals. And they are trying to change the country, permanently, to wear the face of fascism. It should be clear by now that they will do WHATEVER it takes to accomplish this. I really don’t think we should let them.

Guest posted by Sean Hannity:

This is atrocious! I am outraged that you would suggest such a thing!! You are undoubtedly funded by MoveOn.org! How dare you make such a suggestion! Outageous! Outageous! Outageous! Outageous! Outageous! Outageous!

I am outraged! Besides, this would never work. We all know that terrorists are liberals, and that liberals aren’t capable of being raped because they are so sexually promiscuous. What you call rape and torture, a liberal calls Thursday night. Torture should be uncomfortable at the least.

You are a treasonous America-hater who hates Jesus and babies too. I am outraged by you!!

Wonder when Rush Limbergh & co will start calling the authors “phoney soldiers”.

PurplePatriot @ 34:

Guest Posted by Sean Hannity (’s ghost writer):

I haven’t read this entire post. Don’t have to … I already know what you liberals are up to. Plus, it’s just too many words. I live in the real world where action, not words, is required. I knew I could stop reading at the word judges.

You liberals. There you go again. You and your activist judges! Now your activist judges are advocating torture for generals, or something like that. Treason, plain and simple.

Yes something stupid-ignorant like that.

Since it looks like there will be a full vote in the Senate on Mukasey, it is key that we put extreme pressure on the following Democrats for voting yes in favor of the S. 3930 [109th]: Military Commissions Act of 2006. (MCA)

AR Pryor, Mark [D]
CO Salazar, Ken [D]
DE Carper, Thomas [D]
FL Nelson, Bill [D]
LA Landrieu, Mary [D]
MI Stabenow, Debbie Ann [D]
NE Nelson, Ben [D]
NJ Lautenberg, Frank [D]
NJ Menendez, Robert [D]
SD Johnson, Tim [D]
WV Rockefeller, John [D]

The MCA gives the president the authority to establish a SEPARATE justice system for trying alien unlawful enemy combatants. If defines torture broadly. The MCA justice system lacks the basic protections afforded to defendants in our domestic system of laws, in our military justice system, or even in the system of laws used to try war criminals. The Nazis had more civil liberty protection than “enemy combatants” do.
Persons accused by the president of being alien unlawful enemy combatants are forbidden from invoking the Geneva Conventions. The MCA denies the combatant the right to challenge the legitimacy of their confinement and allows “coerced” interrogation techniques to be used. What does this have to do with you as a US citizen?

The president and his lawyers now claim the authority to declare ANY US citizen an “enemy combatant” and authority to define torture and material support broadly. Further “enemy combatant” is a status offense meaning if the president says you are a combatant, then you are.

Tell the Democratic Senators who helped pass the Military Commissions Act into law that it is their time to right this wrong. Otherwise, constituents in their states should mark them as torture condoning senators and vote them out of office.

just when we think we’ve heard it all………It never ceases to amaze me the bulls*** that comes out of the mouths of your goverment officials.

33
Uphere Says:

Snowball Says: “I’m betting on Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders to vote no on Mukasey. So much for this being a Jew thing”.

That’s NOT the point Ruthless People made. It was: “Lieberman-Feinstein-Schummer the axis of Zionists.” Zionist, not Jewish. There IS a difference.

I didn’t single him out. The statement “It’s a Jew thing” came from one of the threads on this the other night. There were other similar comments as well. Just because Feinstein and Schumer are Jewish doesn’t mean this instance has anything to do with Zionism, Isreal, AIPAC or being Jewish. All roads don’t lead to Israel and Zionism unless you are a zealot, racist or conspiracy theorist. And don’t give me that garbage straw man argument that I’m calling any criticism of Israel anti-semitic, I’m not. I’m just saying it has nothing to do with this issue and you you be hard pressed to show any link other than the ethnicity of Feinstein and Schumer.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/...../#comments

moonsha @ 38:

Since it looks like there will be a full vote in the Senate on Mukasey, it is key that we put extreme pressure on the following Democrats for voting yes in favor of the S. 3930 [109th]: Military Commissions Act of 2006. (MCA)

Tell the Democratic Senators who helped pass the Military Commissions Act into law that it is their time to right this wrong. Otherwise, constituents in their states should mark them as torture condoning senators and vote them out of office.

God, I wish I wasn’t so cynical as to believe that contacting these assholes would actually make a difference. I’d have more luck contacting Jessica Alba and getting a date (with heavy petting) than actually getting through to anyone in D.C.

I hate that I feel that way.

Let’s all send out light, energy, vibes, prayers, whatever — that Feinstein and Schumer will wake the fuck up and do the right thing. We are far from alone in knowing Mukasey will be nothing but legal cover for Jr and his sneering gang of thugs.

As a voter in the state of New York, I have a big problem with Senator Schumer’s support of this cand