DoJ Official Fired For Calling Waterboarding Torture

[GrowRebel]

Countdown: Feinstein & Schumer Fold - DoJ Official Pushed Out For Calling Waterboarding Torture
On Friday’s Countdown Keith Olbermann talked to Newsweek’s Richard Wolfe and Former Nixon White House Counsel, John Dean, about Senators Feinstein and Schumer’s inexcusable caving on President Bush’s Attorney General nominee and an ABC News report that claims former acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin was forced out of the DoJ when he declared waterboarding to be torture — after allowing himself to be waterboarded.
What a corrupted and EVIL regime ... "the US doesn't torture" ... yeah ... right ...

 

[medicineman]

Countdown: Feinstein & Schumer Fold - DoJ Official Pushed Out For Calling Waterboarding Torture
On Friday’s Countdown Keith Olbermann talked to Newsweek’s Richard Wolfe and Former Nixon White House Counsel, John Dean, about Senators Feinstein and Schumer’s inexcusable caving on President Bush’s Attorney General nominee and an ABC News report that claims former acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin was forced out of the DoJ when he declared waterboarding to be torture — after allowing himself to be waterboarded.
What a corrupted and EVIL regime ... "the US doesn't torture" ... yeah ... right ...

Do you think waterboarding is torture? What about having to endure 8 fucking years of GW Bush and company, thats torture for certain.

 

[clekstro]

We torture.

It doesn't matter what the official says, or promises. We torture those people or we have other people do it. I heard a story about a guy having his genitals cut up with razorblades once a month in US custody in Afghanistan; it was routine.

We are disgusting in the places that don't exist on television, period.

You're simply not allowed to show sympathy for a "terrorist" or the current enemy of Oceania.

 

[clekstro]

specifically on waterboarding. yeah, it's torture. The only thing separating "enhanced interrogation techniques" from torture is the propaganda and secrecy surrounding US torture.

 

[Wavels]

Waterboarding is certainly not torture if one considers the historical meaning and application of true torture.
But the left simply loves to redefine words to suit their smear campaigns, in order to advance its wacky, nonsensical agenda.
Wavels

Excerpts below from
[FONT=times new roman,times]American Thinker: The 'Torture' Fraud of the Left[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]"Torture" is probably the most egregious of these cases. That's the explanation for the sneer quotes. Because, quite simply, in much of the debate over "torture", we're not talking about actual torture at all. We're talking about rough treatment, harshness, or coercion. [/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]The American left has defined these upward until they mean the same thing as torture, all as a part of their efforts to undermine the War on Terror in general. The core of this stance is the assertion that a slap on the head, several days without sleep, or hearing Rage Against the Machine played at full volume is fully the equivalent of torture in the classic sense. (Well... maybe we should reconsider that last....)[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Of course, it's no such thing. Torture is easily defined as physical assault carried out over a prolonged period against a victim under complete control and holding the possibility of permanent physical or psychic damage. Official legal terminology contains the proviso that torture consists of acts that "revolt the conscience" We can also add, by way of Dashiell Hammett, that such actions must have "threat of death behind them". If they contain these elements, they are torture. If not, they're something less. Not necessarily something justifiable or commendable, but not torture either. (Another method of judging these actions is to ask whether the activity would excite an individual like Mengele or Yezhov.) [/FONT]


Waterboarding may be brutal, it may be nasty, it may even be uncalled for. But it's not torture. It does not inflict physical pain or damage. It does not destroy the victim. Its sole purpose is to create a sense of terror by arousing deep instinctive reactions against drowning, instincts shared not only by almost all mammals, but almost all vertebrates who don't happen to be fish. It is effective, it is quick, it leaves no scars and should revolt no one's conscience.

 

[medicineman]

Waterboarding is certainly not torture if one considers the historical meaning and application of true torture.
But the left simply loves to redefine words to suit their smear campaigns, in order to advance its wacky, nonsensical agenda.
Wavels

Excerpts below from
[FONT=times new roman,times]American Thinker: The 'Torture' Fraud of the Left[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]"Torture" is probably the most egregious of these cases. That's the explanation for the sneer quotes. Because, quite simply, in much of the debate over "torture", we're not talking about actual torture at all. We're talking about rough treatment, harshness, or coercion. [/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]The American left has defined these upward until they mean the same thing as torture, all as a part of their efforts to undermine the War on Terror in general. The core of this stance is the assertion that a slap on the head, several days without sleep, or hearing Rage Against the Machine played at full volume is fully the equivalent of torture in the classic sense. (Well... maybe we should reconsider that last....)[/FONT]


[FONT=times new roman,times]Of course, it's no such thing. Torture is easily defined as physical assault carried out over a prolonged period against a victim under complete control and holding the possibility of permanent physical or psychic damage. Official legal terminology contains the proviso that torture consists of acts that "revolt the conscience" We can also add, by way of Dashiell Hammett, that such actions must have "threat of death behind them". If they contain these elements, they are torture. If not, they're something less. Not necessarily something justifiable or commendable, but not torture either. (Another method of judging these actions is to ask whether the activity would excite an individual like Mengele or Yezhov.) [/FONT]


Waterboarding may be brutal, it may be nasty, it may even be uncalled for. But it's not torture. It does not inflict physical pain or damage. It does not destroy the victim. Its sole purpose is to create a sense of terror by arousing deep instinctive reactions against drowning, instincts shared not only by almost all mammals, but almost all vertebrates who don't happen to be fish. It is effective, it is quick, it leaves no scars and should revolt no one's conscience.

Fine wavels, go on down and sign up for a little recreational waterboarding. You are such a dolt.

 

[GrowRebel]

Waterboarding is certainly not torture if one considers the historical meaning and application of true torture.
But the left simply loves to redefine words to suit their smear campaigns, in order to advance its wacky, nonsensical agenda.
Wavels

[FONT=times new roman,times] Torture is easily defined as physical assault carried out over a prolonged period against a victim under complete control and holding the possibility of permanent physical or psychic damage. [/FONT]

Waterboarding may be brutal, it may be nasty, it may even be uncalled for. But it's not torture.

The definition fits waterboarding to a tee .... you try it and see if you aren't crying for your mommy after a minute of waterboarding.

You are a complete ass to say it's brutal but not torture ... anyone that says it isn't needs to be waterboarded.

 

[dankie]

Waterboarding has been torture in this country since we signed the Geneva convention, and is reprehensible. This president has done everything possible to not call these "Detainees" Prisoners of War in order to muddy the waters and follow whatever damn rules they choose.

According to the articles of the Geneva Convention:

Article 17
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.[/FONT]

 

[closet.cult]

somebody seriously needs to waterboard G.W.

 

[DND]

And Wavels apparently. Anyone saying it "technically" isn't torture should experience it and then speak.

"The American left" I love it![FONT=times new roman,times][/FONT]

 

[Wavels]

Can all you lefties do is call me an ass or dolt???
Yup, what dazzling logic....You have certainly changed my mind!

Thanks for the thoughtful post dankie.....You do make a point, however IMO the Geneva protections specify uniformed combatants....none of the alleged torture has been applied to anyone who falls under this convention.
IMO we have been treating these human vermin much too kindly.

 

[dankie]

Can all you lefties do is call me an ass or dolt???
Yup, what dazzling logic....You have certainly changed my mind!

Thanks for the thoughtful post dankie.....You do make a point, however IMO the Geneva protections specify uniformed combatants....none of the alleged torture has been applied to anyone who falls under this convention.
IMO we have been treating these human vermin much too kindly.

Exactly why this isn't torture technically. If these "detainees were held on our soil, they could not be treated like this either.

The Geneva convention goes on to state a lot more than just uniformed combatants, but uniformed or displaying a sign that they are part of this enemy is what it truly comes down to.

So would you agree waterboarding is torture, it just depends who you do this to that constitutes torture?

 

[DND]

Don't mind me...I'm still looking for the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden in Iraq. Wait, did I get that right? Waterboarding, I've done that a few times in Hawaii, fun times!

Signed,
George Bush

 

[sleepytown]

This is just ripped from the wikipedia article, but...

"Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated "a number of people" who had been subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including waterboarding. An interview for The New Yorker states, "[He] argued that it was indeed torture, 'Some victims were still traumatized years later', he said. One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained. 'The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience,' he said."[4]"


I don't think this happens to anyone who was just subjected to "good cop, bad cop".

S-Town

 

[clekstro]

Can all you lefties do is call me an ass or dolt???
Yup, what dazzling logic....You have certainly changed my mind!

Thanks for the thoughtful post dankie.....You do make a point, however IMO the Geneva protections specify uniformed combatants....none of the alleged torture has been applied to anyone who falls under this convention.
IMO we have been treating these human vermin much too kindly.

Being pro-torture is not a liberal or leftist position. Its bipartisan legal prohibition means that even conservatives are concerned with human rights; but only the real conservatives, Wavel.

This warmongering, this aggressive pro-empire scare shaming that you and Vi spit out to people who believe in global human rights in spite of 9/11, is appalling and in no way more defensible than bigotry. You tow the neo-con line and believe in killing third wirld peasants for American pride. "These vermin"--what about the innocent vermin that have suffered this horrible treatment!?! You haven't used the word victims because they're our victims. This sort of animosity is un-American, in my opinion. Americans should rationally analyze their enemies, instead of creating fables or sagas about our goodness. And for god's sake, quit using that fucking propaganda word "homeland." (not that you said it)

The problem, Wavels, is that you and Vi have accepted their language and their lies.

 

[Wavels]

Upon reflection, I have decided that the only way that I could possibly perceive waterboarding as torture would be if I were to use a “Politically Correct” prism thru which I then may possibly view waterboarding to be torture.
However, when historical perspective and context is used to view the practice of waterboarding, it is hard to see how it could, in any way, be construed as torture in the traditional sense.
Waterboarding does not kill people; therefore it fails Dashiel Hammetts’(and many others) designation of torture.

Clekstro, your characterization of Vi and me is also historically misinformed, and I humbly disagree.
Who wants to intentionally “kill peasants” as you fallaciously claim?
--- “believe in killing third wirld peasants for American pride” (excerpt from post)

 

[dankie]

Upon reflection, I have decided that the only way that I could possibly perceive waterboarding as torture would be if I were to use a “Politically Correct” prism thru which I then may possibly view waterboarding to be torture.
However, when historical perspective and context is used to view the practice of waterboarding, it is hard to see how it could, in any way, be construed as torture in the traditional sense.
Waterboarding does not kill people; therefore it fails Dashiel Hammetts’(and many others) designation of torture.

Clekstro, your characterization of Vi and me is also historically misinformed, and I humbly disagree.
Who wants to intentionally “kill peasants” as you fallaciously claim?
--- “believe in killing third wirld peasants for American pride” (excerpt from post)

Well torture is not meant to kill. in fact placing a hot iron on someones chest will never kill them. Stretching someone on a rack will not kill them. Pulling someones teeth with a pair of pliers wont kill them. Are these not methods of torture?

By the way, are you taking your definition of torture from the fiction author Dashiell Hammett? The man who wrote the Maltese Falcon?

 

[Wavels]

Dankie, the very point of "torture" is the tangible and true threat of death..?

 

[dankie]

Dankie, the very point of "torture" is the tangible and true threat of death..?

Oh I think you are mistaken, and so does Mariam Webster:

Main Entry: 1tor·ture Pronunciation: \ˈtȯr-chər\ Function: noun Etymology: Middle French, from Old French, from Late Latin tortura, from Latin tortus, past participle of torquēre to twist; probably akin to Old High German drāhsil turner, Greek atraktos spindle Date: 1540 1 a: anguish of body or mind : agony b: something that causes agony or pain2: the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure3: distortion or overrefinement of a meaning or an argument : straining

No where in that definition is death killing or murder mentioned. Oh no torture is used to make the subject of the torture wish for death.

 

[Wavels]

And again the point being that virtually everyone undergoing waterboarding knows that it will not lead to their death. It does not scar or maim human beings, can you truly not recognize these distinctions?