Nov. 4, 2007
Mukasey To Congress: You Say It First
By Refusing To Say Waterboarding Is Torture, Justice Nominee Puts the Ball In Congress' Court
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Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey refused to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee that he believes waterboarding, a form of interrogation that simulates drowning which U.S. agents have used against terrorism suspects, is against the law. (CBS)
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Tumultuous Tenure
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigns amid firings firestorm, questions over handling of terror investigations.
"The waterboarding victim may be immersed in water, have water forced into the nose and mouth, or have water poured onto material placed over the face so that the liquid is inhaled or swallowed. The media usually describe the practice as "simulated drowning." That's incorrect. To be effective, waterboarding is usually real drowning that simulates death. That is, the victim experiences the sensations of drowning: struggle, panic, breath-holding, swallowing, vomiting, taking water into the lungs and, eventually, the same feeling of not being able to breathe that one experiences after being punched in the gut.So in the end the Democrats were unable to force Attorney General-nominee Michael B. Mukasey into publicly declaring that the simulated-death form of interrogation called “waterboarding” falls within the legal definition of torture, and thus is outlawed completely. Good.
- Evan Wallach, former JAG official in Sunday’s Washington Post
Instead of trying to coerce a high-ranking executive branch official into undercutting his own president’s power, the legislators ought to instead look inward, toward Capitol Hill, and simply and expressly prohibit “waterboarding” by federal statute.
They’ve been talking about it for years. And for years the White House and Congressional Republicans have been able to maintain the status quo, which is mealy-mouthed statutory language that clearly leaves open (as a legal possibility anyway) the notion that waterboarding is lawful.
Now, it’s true that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., believes that waterboarding is outlawed by the Military Commissions Act of 2006. But unfortunately for those in the anti-waterboarding camp, McCain does not have a vote on the United States Supreme Court.
And he has only one vote on the floor of the Senate. He should use that vote, and the pulpit of a presidential campaign (pay attention Hillary, Barack and Rudy!), to try to rouse a veto-proof majority in both houses into a clear and definitive federal ban on waterboarding of any sort as an interrogation technique. I mean, even the soon-to-be-Attorney General himself, Mukasey, called the practice “repugnant” last week and pointedly noted that it is already prohibited for use by the U.S. military.
So wouldn’t it make sense, then, to simply extend the prohibition against a “repugnant” form of interrogation method to all U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials?
It makes sense to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., who, in deciding last week to vote against Mukasey, offered this simple rationale: “There may be interrogation techniques that require close examination and extensive briefings. Waterboarding is not among them. No American should need a classified briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture. … We prosecuted Japanese war criminals for waterboarding after World War II. If an American was captured and waterboarded, would we consider it torture and want to raise bloody hell about it? Of course we would.”
So aren’t there, say, at least 10 Senate Republicans who could square such a prohibition with their constituents? Aren’t there a few dozen House Republicans who could stand up to the President and say that the time for intentional ambiguity over the legal status of waterboarding must end? After all, a private White House promise not to waterboard may be a way to determine the legislative intent of a senator like McCain when it comes to the breadth of the Commissions Act. But it is no legal substitute for an explicit statutory provision in the Act which bans the practice.
Concerns about a retroactive application of the ban which might lead to the prosecution of interrogation officials? Forget about them. The ban would have to be — and should be — prospective. You can’t go after intelligence officials now who believed that they were acting under valid orders — remember the Bybee and Gonzales memos that temporarily loosened the rules for torture? The retroactivity issue is a perfect carrot to toss at Congressional Republicans and the White House in order for the deal to get done.
And even if a veto-proof majority against waterboarding were not possible, would it not serve the nation to force the President to either confirm or deny in public, via his veto choice, whether it really is true that the feds are out of the waterboarding business for good? Yes or no, up or down. At least then we’d have the kind of legal and moral clarity it seems to me we need, and deserve, when the issue is a barbaric interrogation technique that is “real drowning” that “simulates death.”
In his statement Friday pledging continued support for Mukasey’s nomination, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., offered this significant (and significantly under-reported) nugget. Mukasey, Schumer wrote, “made clear to me [in private] that, were Congress to pass a law banning certain interrogation techniques, we would clearly be acting within our constitutional authority. And he flatly told me that the President would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law, not even under some theory of inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution. He also pledged to enforce such a law and repeated his willingness to leave office rather than participate in a violation of law.”
Clearly, Schumer believes that Mukasey is disposed (even poised) to say the magic words - "waterboarding is illegal" - if Congress first offers better guidance in the form of specific statutory language. This is no small thing. It signals that Mukasey isn’t interested in obstructing justice when it comes to waterboarding but rather is eager to defer to the legislative branch the dispositive call on the matter. Congress should rush to accept the nominee’s invitation; after all, the lawmakers have been waiting for 6 years to be invited by the executive branch to help it lead the anti-terror effort.
Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wisc., who also rode to Mukasey’s rescue late last week, seems to understand the need for speed here. On Friday afternoon, Feingold offered this: “Both Senators [Edward] Kennedy [D-Mass.] and [Joseph] Biden [S-Md.] have introduced legislation to this effect. I believe we should put one of those bills in the FISA legislation now under consideration in the Judiciary Committee. Once this law is enacted, the Attorney General would be required to enforce it, and Judge Mukasey’s answers give every reason to believe that he would.”
That’s why Mukasey’s nomination ultimately could be the catalyst that finally ends waterboarding as a legal form of interrogation. Public attention now is drawn to the issue in an unprecedented way. The man and the moment have arrived. And the passage of a ban on waterboarding would ensure that Mukasey has contributed to our nation’s enduring, fair and decent rule of law even before he spends his first day as Attorney General of the United States.
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See all 82 CommentsHigh ranking officials are there not only to rank above those below, but to send feedback upwards. The President can hardly literally listen to every American--he said when running for office that he would listen to intelligent folks and therefore be informed, in order to make good decisions.
This is not undercutting his Presidents power.
The Legislators know this. Tha author of this...piece.. conveniently, does not.
Waterboarding within a context that it may actually happen to the individual, from their point of view, makes it torture. Simple.
Its the context.
If this "high ranking" slob can''t admit something that simple--hes a crook.
Waterboard-ing is percieved by the waterboard-ee as being convincing that drowning is approaching for that person.
It is highly unlikely that those doing the waterboarding successfully transmit the idea to the waterboard-ee that he should not worry about drowning. That would be a t cross purposes--and would not be believed even if stated as the "reality" that the waterboard-ee should cling to.
DUH.
Absolutely not--and here is why, since you asked the question and must want to know te answer:
"to simply extend the prohibition against a ''repugnant'' form of interrogation" would not only lower the bar on what can be called torture-- it would call into question anything that might conceivably be drafted into being covered by the phrase "repugnant", and create a whole new playing field for conjecture and bickering, over simple truth.
FOR MUKASEY.....
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2007/11/02/moos.waterboard.yourself.cnn
Re: "Instead of trying to coerce a high-ranking executive branch official into undercutting his own president%u2019s power, the legislators ought to instead look inward, toward Capitol Hill, and simply and expressly prohibit %u201Cwaterboarding%u201D by federal statute."
Waterboarding and other forms of torture are already defined as criminal acts, as described by U.S.-bound international treaties.
This "legal expert", Andrew Cohen, lends himself as an apologist for despots with this line of reasoning, and exposes a very poor knowledge of the applicable laws.
Perhaps Andrew Cohen should be volunteered for a water-boarding torture session or two, so that he could provide us with some more useful analysis on the subject.
###
Side note:
Re: The Chevron "human energy" campaign.
By "human energy", is Chevron talking about the energy that it expends to torture, murder and rape people, in their efforts to maximize profits:
"Chevron is one of the largest foreign investors in Burma and is the only remaining major U.S. corporation with a significant presence there. In 2005, Chevron bought the company Unocal weeks after the latter settled a lawsuit accusing it of assisting the Burmese military junta in the torture, murder and rape of villagers during construction of a pipeline."
www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/12/1454252
...or are they proposing the idea of squeezing oil out of humans, directly?
The perception of the waterboardee is not law.
Congress passed this law. So I can agree that the president could have acted differently on the law, the law apparently doesn''t say its illegal.
Apparently waterboarding is not illegal, at least in all situations. While it might be against the Geneva Convention, or that doesn''t mean it is illegal in all cases.
The Military Commission Act passed in September of 2006. How did those running for presidency vote on it? Amnesty international was certainlly warning that it was a bad law in 2006 - hard to believe Congress can now act so pure. Yes, some of the Dems and Republicans in office are new, some voted against it. Go look at the Congressional record.
Stop just blaming Bush for everything and start looking at your government. If you don''t you will have the same thing with the next administration, no matter which party it is. Make the government responsible for their actions.
Which Democrat candidates have said that "waterboarding is illegal" and said it to mean it applies in all circumstances?
Please do not make the mistake of believing that there are "circumstances" which warrant such techniques. Please consider if you think those circumstances are good enough to you.
Stop condemning without actually investigating a bit on your own, use your own thoughts, instead of just picking up on ranting everyone is doing about one thing or another.
wmbooth57,
Re: "While it might be against the Geneva Convention, or that doesn''t mean it is illegal in all cases."
Sure it does. In ALL cases. The U.S. is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions- an international treaty, described by our own Constitution as the "Supreme Law of the Land".
Re: "The Military Commission Act passed in September of 2006."
Fascistic and counter-Constitutional legislation such as this, has about as much legitimacy as the Congress abdicating its responsibility to the unelected puppet-Fuhrer (heil), allowing him to wage an illegal war of aggression, which is none.
Waterboarding and other torture methods are also very serious offenses under the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996.
wmbooth57,
Re: "Which Democrat candidates have said that "waterboarding is illegal" and said it to mean it applies in all circumstances?"
Who cares? Most of them have failed our ountry just as badly as the Republicans. What difference does it make?
Are you trying to claim that collusuion betwen our two "major" Parties to commit war crimes, somehow makes it O.K.?
Naturally, asking a nominee of the Great Emperor Bush''s about torture would be like asking Heinrich Himmler if there were any "death camps".
To the Great Emperor, the USSA does not torture, but does use "aggressive methods of interrogation" which sounds a lot like what the KGB had been saying under the old USSR!
Despite this, the Emperor has chalked up still another VICTORY against the cowardly Democrats in Congress and the Legislative Branch and is moving on to other priorities such as vetoing any other health care bills for the lazy children of the USSA and demanding billions more of "borrowed" dollars from Congress to "SUPPORT THE TROOPS" (AND Blackwater, KBR, Halliburton, etc, etc.) with no strings (or ropes) attached!
SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!
It is specifically named as a prohibited technique in several judicial opinions and treaties (sometimes described as ''partially submersing a person held in an inverted position'').
Also, regarding laws about physical violence -- there is no law that specifically prohibits "pushing a pen into someones ear" -- the law prohibiting ''assult and battery'' or causing physical pain and suffering are written in general form. If a mafia guy waterboarded someone to steal their money (or the mafia waterboarded an FBI agent), it would be a domestic criminal case of aggravated assault (aka torture).
This is about more than one specific torture technique. I am opposed to religion and *** used in torture scenarios (what if an American was tortured with a cross and porno).
It is anti-American and goes against all of our religious and legal traditions. Because some other country or group does it does not make it right. It significantly harms our country, especially our credibility because of the lies, secrecy and inconsistency.
Posted by walt1944 at 09:06 PM : Nov 04, 2007
ZIG HELL Fuerher walt you''re unhinged
Worst: Rumsfeld and Cheney (the ringleaders), Gonzales and Meyers (chief enablers), Yoo (wrote bogus justification briefs), Bush (clueless at best). Should be prosecuted. Btw, Rumsfeld fled Frane last week to escape arrest. Like Pinochet they will be unable to travel.
Many in both parties to blame for sitting on their hands -- and this should factor into electability and primary contests.
It is to be noted that there were principled torture opponents from both parties -- e.g. McCain, Hagel, even Ashcroft...
Many in both parties to blame for sitting on their hands -- and this should factor into electability and primary contests.
It is to be noted that there were principled torture opponents from both parties -- e.g. McCain, Hagel, even Ashcroft...
Posted by greco99 at 09:33 PM : Nov 04, 2007
Cute pablum greco99 but it really all about you being POd about Bush winning in 00 and 04. All you have is lies and name calling.
Worst: Rumsfeld and Cheney (the ringleaders), Gonzales and Meyers (chief enablers), John Yoo (wrote bogus justification briefs), Bush (clueless at best). All of the above should be prosecuted. Btw, Rumsfeld fled France last week to escape arrest (or maybe left the shower running and had to return home pronto). Like Pinochet they will be unable to travel freely without some fear of arrest.
Many in both parties to blame for sitting on their hands -- and this should factor into electability, campaign contributions and especially primary contests.
It is to be noted that there were principled torture opponents from both parties -- e.g. McCain, Hagel, even Ashcroft...
Posted by FeelFree1 at 07:45 PM : Nov 04, 2007
Waterboarding isn''t illegal and it isn''t torture. You don''t even know what kind of water boarding is being done. How many people haved drowned from waterboarding, how many people have been waterboarded 3?
It''s just you''re blind deranged hatred for Bush over the 00 and 04 election losses to Bush.
Posted by greco99 at 09:38 PM : Nov 04, 2007
Waterboarding isn''t torture, if it is Congress needs to go on the record in lieu of just running their big fat lying mouths for 08 votes.
The deficit has exploded, and corruption is widespread. The dollar is crashing and oil is skyrocketing directly because of the war. The war hurts US companies getting oil contracts. With the war costs so far, we could put solar collectors on 50 million U.S. homes to generate more electricity than we will ever get from Iraq. Contrators are alleged to have sold weapons to our enemies and engaged in child S*x trafficking -- with minimal or no prosecution.
We need leadership in the DOJ - not more corrupt cronyism.
If Mukasey supports actions that are on the books as illegal, or dishonestly refuses to answer the questions, or ''just can''t seem to figure it out'' -- he is not fit for the job.
There are no laws that provide for state sanctioned aggravated assult. Smug beltway boys shrug off torture with a chuckle. In my USA tortures will be hunted down and prosicuted to the full extent of the law. If a person can''t say waterboarding is illegal then they don''t know right from wrong and don''t deserve a position of trust.
Remember: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/15/abughr aib.photos/
Would you torture someone if there is only a chance of a terror event? Say, a 10% chance they know about it? Torture one hundred to find the one guilty? Would you torture a child to make a parent talk? What about rape, sexual abuse. Or, religious abuse?
We may have done all ofthe above.
Should these be off the table? If so, then should there be punishment, or at least transparency, when we do it.
Canadians, Germans, and Americans have been tortured by Americans under putative color of law. Should they be entitied to reparation if proven innocent? How will these techniques get out of hand if they become standard (and remain secret)?
Visibility is key. If you do it, make it public -- perhaps that provides at least some greater degree of moral protection than we see with the proliferation of secret courts and secrecy laws...
If you try to craft actual torture laws you will see myriad problems...
Where are the prosecutions of the people who did this to Donald Vance (who btw, probably just wants all this to go away).
Consider that carefully.
He was an active FBI informant at the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Vance
Previous post----
There is even a case where an American whistle blower (Donald Vance), who reported contractors for illegally selling weapons, was held and tortured. Because of the secrecy etc. once he was in the system he had no recourse.
Where are the prosecutions of the people who did this to Donald Vance (who btw, probably just wants all this to go away).
Consider that carefully.
Do we get a Mulligan? Does Diane Feinstein apologize? Does Chuck Schumer move to impeach Mukasey? Do *** Cheney and David Addison smirk yet again about putting (yet another) one over on the US constitution?
That''s not a bet I''d want to take, would you?
"Waterboarding isn''''t illegal and it isn''''t torture. "
You are without a clue.
Army Regulation 190%u20138, otherwise known as %u201CJoint Forces Regulation for the Treatment of Enemy Prisoners of War, Retained Personnel, Civilian Internees and Other Detainees%u201D. (Find the complete 86-page document)-
http://www.usapa.army.mil/pdffiles/r190%5F8.pdf
This document is an official Department of Defense regulatory guideline, which has the force of law in all services of the U.S. Military. It is also based on the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, (commonly known as the GPW), which, because the U.S. Congress ratified it, has the force of law.
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm
This makes the breaking of these regulations by a civilian or military employee of the Department of Defense equally unlawful.
jowand, if you live in the US and hold US citizenship, you are hereby asked to leave and renounce your citizenship.
This game of making a new law gives Bush and his fascists an out, they will claim that it cannot be retroactive, and therefore they are not guilty.
Skip all the semantics games, start impeachment proceedings, and prepare the arrest warrants for treason, there is more than enough provable criminality to justify such.
The Chatham House report, written by Gareth Stansfield, a Middle East expert, is unremittingly bleak, says BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins.
Mr Stansfield argues that the break-up of Iraq is becoming increasingly likely.
In large parts of the country, the Iraqi government is powerless, he says, as rival factions struggle for local supremacy.
The briefing paper, entitled Accepting Realities in Iraq, says: "There is not ''a'' civil war in Iraq, but many civil wars and insurgencies involving a number of communities and organisations struggling for power."
Their is no "legal ambiguity" about whether waterboarding is torture or not. We have prosecuted others for generations, including Japanese and Germans in WWII, including the "doctors" who supervised the torture, for the exact same heinous procedure.
And are we now going to have to prohibit every form of torture that comes down the new road of American fascism, decades after tens of thousands have suffered under its execution?
How about if we just go back to the good old Constitution of the United States of America, and the rule of law it embraces, instead.
And then lawfully prosecute those who have subverted it.
ST
"The Republican and Democratic parties have delivered us into the hands of darkness."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - www.searingtruth.com
When compared to the Torture and other Criminal atrocities committed
against children within American Juvenile Detention Centers by
Federal Agents
____
Both Senators Kennedy (D) Mass. and Joseph Biden (S-Md.) have introduced
legislation that would - Outlaw Waterboarding
So What ! ! ! ....... Waterboarding won''t be legal in the US.
Outside the US....Federal Agents can Continue to use any type of Criminal
Torture Techniques they want
Mukasey ....is just Stonewalling.
Bush has threatened to Appoint a new AG
If Bush appoints an Attorney General - He cannot be taken before the Senate
Questioned for approval.
You take the one that has been ...Selected by - Bush
or
You take the one that will be ...Appointed by - Bush
In - 1934
Hitler replaced Attorneys and Judges.
With His own Loyal Party Members.
Then totally Ignored, the Fundamental Laws of Germany.
Brought to you by :
The Republican (Nazi) Party - Criminal Corporate (Nazi) America
Lastdance
Kind of funny when you read this. To paraprase: ''wow..amazing...a Bush appointee who will not obstruct the law with impunity''.
Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, the Nuremberg Diary
"... to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists ..."
Dec 6, 2001, Attorney General Ashcroft
A Future of the Brave - www.searingtruth.com
So, Feingold, Schumer, Feinstein, and all the Democratic candidates and a few Republicans say they are against using waterboarding and consider it torture.
Let them pass a law or be held as liars and scum.
So, Feingold, Schumer, Feinstein, and all the Democratic candidates and a few Republicans say they are against using waterboarding and consider it torture.
Let them pass a law or be held as liars and scum.
Posted by CBS_Oliver
Even better, pass the law, and make it retroactive back to Vietnam, when it was last prosecuted by the US army as such, then Bush looses his loophole to claim "we only did it when it was legal"...
If it cannot be made retroactive, then it is better not to make a new law, just rely on the existing body of law, that has prosecuted this action in the past.
Posted by brianbwb at 07:17 AM : Nov 05, 2007"
I think this is what makes the most sense. Were do we stop otherwise ? A specific law for every kind of torture lawmakers could think of ? I bet Bush and Cheney would find a new one.
Why?
Because this is the nature of how stupid the Left Fascists really are. They cry about the Patriot Act? Yet not a one is in prison. They scream about freedom of expression, yet THEY try to deny others, including that obnoxious Ron Paul clown who is really on THEIR side, his. They scream Fascist and Sieg Heil when it comes to Bush - yet they are among the most sickening, repugnant Anti-Semites to ever grace a blog. If I were called a Hitler Lover, and really wasn''t - I''d be outraged. But methinks these Lefties really wish Der Fuhrer was back, just as they wish for a Bin Laden victory.
Scum - cowards and traitors - that''s all they are.
Thanks, Abbe, and you too Loser-man, Iceboy aka LastDance, Randy BoBS, and dweebil among others, including Tucker rhymes with F and FeelJihadi to constantly verifying what I''ve said:
IF LEFTISTS HAD BRAINS THEY''D BE REPUBLICANS. AND AMERICANS, NOT NAZI COWARDS.
DEMOCRATS IN SOUTH CAROLINA DENY COLBERT A PLACE ON THE BALLOT...
Hmmmm, Stephen Colbert is actually in their court. But I guess they wanted to make room for his even more dumb twin - the Ga-ye Naziboy, Keith Olber-MANN.
After all, Olber-MANN is more obnoxious and he has MoveOn.Org support - sorry, Stevie, but you just don''t.
That''s the gratitude of your fellow Lefties for your own stupidity. They''d prefer an even frootier bozo than you.
Posted by hillaryin08 at 08:49 AM : Nov 05, 2007
It was easier for the National Enquirer to find headlines in the 1990s.
Actually, the reason for having the Congress pass a law is just to show that they willing to say "No" to any torture at all. It doesn''t really have to be water boarding, it could be impaling people or giving people electric shocks or drilling their teeth or any other torture. They just need to pick one thing they are willing to actually vote to oppose.
As long as they don''t give immunity and maybe even if they do we can still get people for war crimes later without their help - maybe they should be included.
Change.
Before calling "lefties" nazis, he should go and check whom Hitler was friend with ... Prescott Bush, for example.
Change.
Before calling "lefties" nazis, he should go and check whom Hitler was friend with ... Prescott Bush, for example.
Posted by abbe91 at 09:02 AM : Nov 05, 2007
No he wasn''t you''re telling yet another Progressive lie again.
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