Quotes of the Day

"To reject the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey because he refuses to say what some members want him to say on this question, and he refuses as a matter of sincerely held legal belief...would be grossly unfair, an unjust act to this judge. May I suggest an alternative course...confirm him!"

Joe Lieberman, on Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey refusing to say on-record if waterboarding is torture.

""I am confident he would not condone such practices. I have been briefed enough to know we are not doing that today anywhere in America's government."

John McCain, stating the United States does not use waterboarding and that Musasey would not allow the practice.

The fact that we are even debating if waterboarding is torture say much about how polluted public discourse has become in the Bush/Fox News years. Strapping a man to a board and drowning him is most certainly torture. The Spanish Inquisition and Khmer Rouge used the practice. Malcolm Nance trained Navy recruits in the SERE program to withstand torture. He wrote definitive article destroying the "waterboarding is not torture," nonsense.

Waterboarding is not a simulation. Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.

Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.

Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration –usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threaten with its use again and again.

Call it “Chinese Water Torture,” “the Barrel,” or “the Waterfall,” it is all the same. Whether the victim is allowed to comply or not is usually left up to the interrogator. Many waterboard team members, even in training, enjoy the sadistic power of making the victim suffer and often ask questions as an after thought. These people are dangerous and predictable and when left unshackled, unsupervised or undetected they bring us the murderous abuses seen at Abu Ghraieb, Baghram and Guantanamo. No doubt, to avoid human factors like fear and guilt someone has created a one-button version that probably looks like an MRI machine with high intensity waterjets.

Mukasey's exchange with Senator Shelton Whitehouse was an Alberto Gonzales moment. He is too smart of a man to not understand if waterboarding is torture.



Mukasey used covert operatives as a shield by saying, "When there are people who are using coercive techniques and who are being authorized to use coercive techniques. … And for me to say something that is going to put their careers or freedom at risk simply because I want to be congenial—I don't think it would be responsible of me to do that."

What is clearly implied is Mukasey will disreregard the Constition and Geneva Conventions to save a few careers. Including people in the Bush administration.

Waterboarding is being used because it leaves no longterm physical damage on detainees. The Bushies learned their lesson from Abu Ghraib. No more dog bite marks or detainees strung up on razor wire. The Bushies hide the evidence as well as the Corleone family.