Originally Posted by Botnst

Thanks for the succinct response.

If some child molester mofo kidnapped one of my kids and I got my hands on him I'd water-board the ***** out of him until he gave-up the information. If no towels were handy I'd be okay with bamboo shoots. Or pliers. Or a soldering gun.

If I thought somebody was involved in placing a nuke in Paducah, I'd have no reservations whatsoever about extracting means by whatever methods were necessary in order to protect the tens of thousands of people who would be killed by blast and the agony of radiation.

The military subjects trainees in advanced courses to a variety of interrogation techniques that are as harsh as water-boarding and perhaps even more harsh. They also water-board their trainees in these advanced courses. Should the trainers be prosecuted for subjecting their trainees to those techniques?

The other night I tried water-boarding myself after I read about it. I encourage you to try it on yourself. It's a great learning experience.

First of all, it's hard to do effectively to yourself. You need a fresh, very heavy-pile towel. And you have to leave it in the bucket of water until it is thoroughly soaked. I used tap water but I'll bet either extremely cold or extremely hot water would be more effective.

I lay down on the floor and lifted the towel from the bucket onto my face and spread it loosely over my mouth and nose, covering my whole face. (I inhaled first). After about 20-30 seconds ( counted 1-Mississippi, 2-Missisippi ... but by the time I got to about 20 I was going 20 Misip, 21 Misip...). Then I tried gasping for air by exhaling forcefully and snatching air in. that failed, air near my nose and mouth got immediately stopped by the inhalation of the wet fabric. I could hear the air being sucked through the fabric but too slowly to offer relief. I panicked and yanked the wet cloth from my face. Not a recreational event. You go into self-preservation mode much faster than you can think. I was still counting after I pulled-off the towel--my conscious mind had not caught-up to my panic.

Now if I were restrained and could not remove the towel I would have been struggling like crazy and screaming. I could imagine the interrogator casually removing the towel and letting me take a couple of gasps and doing taht again. Say 2-3 times in succession so that I was totally freaked and fully disoriented. Then ask me a question that I could answer in good conscience -- "What day is it?" If no immediate answer, back under the towel. Then you do the good-cop, bad-cop thing. Etc.

It would work on me, I have no doubt. It would be a horrible experience. But in 10 minutes after the last session, my heart-rate would be normal and I'd be physically fit, even if very tired.

Given a choice between subjecting a hijacker or bomb-planter to that kind of interrogation or Mirandizing him and getting him an attorney (etc), f**k Miranda.

B

Originally Posted by MBlovr

1. Yes
2. Yes

Originally Posted by Bokonon

...And it has been prosecuted as a war crime and human rights abuse (when it was done by the Japanese during World War II, among other things)...

Originally Posted by t walgamuth

You've been watching 24 haven't you?

Tom W

Originally Posted by dculkin

Which strikes me as a good reason to not have the future AG answering the question in a Senate committee hearing.

I don't think they should have asked such a specific question in public. Once they asked it, Mukasey probably should have either answered it or refused all comment. There shouldn't have been any dancing around the issue.I don't see what is accomplished by opening it in that particular forum.Those are the right questions. If discussing the issue in a committee hearing is the only way to answer them, then I agree with you. I'm just not convinced that this is the best way to handle it. It seems like Judge Mukasey should have built up enough of a track record to allow the senators to judge his integrity without putting him in such a difficult position.

Originally Posted by Botnst

Thanks for the succinct response.

If some child molester mofo kidnapped one of my kids and I got my hands on him I'd water-board the ***** out of him until he gave-up the information. If no towels were handy I'd be okay with bamboo shoots. Or pliers. Or a soldering gun.

If I thought somebody was involved in placing a nuke in Paducah, I'd have no reservations whatsoever about extracting means by whatever methods were necessary in order to protect the tens of thousands of people who would be killed by blast and the agony of radiation.

Originally Posted by Botnst

Good points.

After Bush's speech today it looks like the wingnuts in both parties are trying to work this into yet another partisan bickering that sheds no light nor changes any minds. I like a certain amount of partisanship if the arguments are well framed. But this gotcha crap is why Congress is held in regard equal to the president.

B

Originally Posted by Bokonon

Um ... isn't Bush part of the wingnut wing of his own party? And hasn't he deliberately stirred up partisanship in the past?

What makes you think this nomination isn't more of the same? Bush probably feels that the GOP will benefit either way. Either Bush is successful in getting his choice of Attorney General -- someone who won't get in his way -- or he stirs up the party faithful, unites them, and gets them to cough up campaign contributions to fight back against those awful, partisan Democrats who ask rude questions to honorable public servants.

-- Bokonon

Originally Posted by Botnst

Duh.

Originally Posted by Bokonon

Here is what some out-of-touch flaming liberal said about waterboarding back in 1901:

"The president desires to know in the fullest and most circumstantial manner all the facts, ... for the very reason that the president intends to back up the Army in the heartiest fashion in every lawful and legitimate method of doing its work; he also intends to see that the most vigorous care is exercised to detect and prevent any cruelty or brutality and that men who are guilty thereof are punished. Great as the provocation has been in dealing with foes who habitually resort to treachery, murder and torture against our men, nothing can justify or will be held to justify the use of torture or inhuman conduct of any kind on the part of the American Army.”

That was Theodore Roosevelt, back before we mired ourselves in moral relativsim and word games, or falsely decided to give ourselves a moral pass on using the vicious techniques of our enemies.

And -- let's note that Roosevelt was dealing with a situation in which American troops had started using brutal counterinsurgency methods to deal with an uprising in the Phillipines ... against guerilla fighters that used waterboarding as a torture technique against captured Americans. Roosevelt waded in and took forceful methods to put an end to that.

So ... we have had this debate before as a nation, and we chose to resolve it the right way.

-- Bokonon

Originally Posted by Botnst

Could you underline or render boldfaced the portion of TR's comment refering specifically to water-boarding?

Originally Posted by cmac2012

I thought Dan Abrams cooked and ate Mukasey's (and Bush's) lunch last night on MSNBC:

GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT: First he does not know whether certain methods of questioning were, in fact, used because the program is classified and, therefore, he is in no position to provide an informed opinion.

ABRAMS: No one is asking whether what is in the program. They are asking a far simpler legal question. Is water boarding torture? This has nothing to do with classified information.

BUSH: Second, he does not want an uninformed opinion to be taken by our professional interrogators in the field as placing them in legal jeopardy.

ABRAMS: Uninformed? He‘s been one of the lead judges on terrorism cases for years. That‘s one of the reasons the president chose him. It‘s a straight forward procedure. As for placing interrogators in legal jeopardy, Congress specifically passed a law that provides legal protection to interrogators for action taken with government authorization. Now, if what the president really means is that former attorney general Gonzalez could be in legal jeopardy, well, that‘s no reason for Mukasey not to answer the question honestly.

BUSH: Finally, he does not want any statement of his to give the terrorist a window into which techniques we may use and which ones we may not use. That could help them train their operatives to resist questioning and withhold vital information we need to stop attacks and save lives.

ABRAMS: And this is the most absurd argument of all. So the fact that they know we don‘t permit fingernail removal allows them to better train. No one is asking him to disclose specifics about what we do. They‘re asking him whether a particular procedure, waterboarding would be torture. And no matter what he says, it‘s no secret that waterboarding is a method some of our interrogators have used.