Liz Cheney defends torture, again
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I don’t know… maybe it’s me. I find it offensive that someone would say, as Liz Cheney did, that the torture program was done carefully and responsibly. What? That may not be the craziest mumbo-jumbo that’s ever been spoken, but it has to be close. As far as I know, there are no exceptions in law for being “careful.” When you break the law, you’ve broken the law.
If you’ve noticed, the defense of torture has taken three separate avenues. Republicans have argued that torture helped save the country because it got “actionable” intelligence. Others have argued that in the hysteria of the immediate post-9/11 period, the CIA, the Defense Department and others in the Bush administration were under enormous pressure to stop the next attack… by any means necessary. Finally, conservatives have argued that the law was never broken and that this is simply partisan policy differences. No one should be prosecuted for differences in policy.
This is all horse hockey. Torture statutes are very simple. They can be understood by anyone who can read English.
(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
(3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.
Waterboarding, “walling” and stress positions are all clearly torture. No exception should be made for having a doctor in the room. (I question whether that doctor should have his/her license removed since this is a clear violation of every ethics code that I know.) There is no exception for protecting the subject’s neck to prevent him from breaking his neck as you throw him against the wall. This whole torture debate is simply crazy. What we did was wrong. Those who did it, those who sanctioned it and those who authorized it need to be sentenced and jailed. I understand there’s an open cells in Guantánamo.
Crooks and Liars has more.
Assertion is not proof
ECT: Waterboarding, Walling, stress positions are all clearly torture.
ECT: TORTURE…severe physical or mental pain or suffering
Electrodes strapped to the genitals or for that matter anything electric, CLEARLY, SEVERELY PAINFUL; CLEARLY TORTURE.
Kneecapping, CLEARLY, SEVERELY PAINFUL; CLEARLY TORTURE.
Slicing your skin off with a razor and pouring salt over the wounds, CLEARLY, SEVERELY PAINFUL; CLEARLY TORTURE.
Pulling teeth without anesthesia, CLEARLY , SEVERELY PAINFUL; CLEARLY TORTURE.
Is waterboarding, walling and stress positions CLEARLY, SEVERELY painful?
TCB –
I’m not sure what your point is. Waterboarding. Drowning. I think that would and has fit into mental pain or suffering. The US government has classified waterboarding as torture since 1903, if I’m not mistaken. We have tried people in this country for waterboarding. We have sent them to prison.
From experiments in the 1950’s we know that you can breakdown a man’s mind with just isolation. No sensation at all for 48 hours. You know this. This is mental suffering. The Russians found that self-inflicted pain could cause a man to breakdown in less than 48 hours. If you make a man stand for 48 hours he will breakdown.
Torture doesn’t have to be pulling out fingernails. This is psychological torture.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Cheney Puppet Liz invokes the 911 lie talking point.
Family sociopaths for profit.
Bulls on Parade ~
Liz Cheney used a ridiculous example to prove that water boarding is not torture. She said that water boarding is not torture since the U.S. Military water boards troops. What she fails to understand or acknowledge is that the water boarding that the troops go through is part of their training. They do not think that they are going to die, like tortured detainees do.
I do not understand how they continue to try to justify this inhumane treatment.
Sean –
What inhumane treatment are you talking about? Are you talking about the network executives subjecting the American public to Liz Cheney? (Tongue-in-cheek)
Of course, you’re exactly right. Techniques that the US has outlawed for nearly 100 years were used against Al Qaeda. It simply wrong. No matter how you look at it, it was simply wrong.
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CHUCK SCHUMER SUPPORTS TORTURE
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When is he going to come out of the closet and defend his words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4CWk5LfoH0
N Waff-
As I have studied politics over the last 4 – 5 years, I find Schumer to an awful type of politician. He is a all smiles on one hand then what the heck is he doing with the other hand. Schumer is the one that pushed the last attorney general – Mulkasey on us. Schumer isn’t really progressive. He isn’t really liberal.
Why do we have him in the Senate again?
ECT: I’m not sure what your point is. Waterboarding. Drowning. I think that would and has fit into mental pain or suffering.
My point is that you assert that water boarding, walling (throwing someone against a wall?) and stress positions are “clearly torture.”
I’m saying that is not so clear.
If you need to appeal to an authority like Jesse Ventura then it must not be so clear.
Moreover, you seem unwilling to follow your own definition. You state that water boarding involves mental suffering. I agree but your definition states that torture is SEVERE suffering or pain.
Prison surely involves mental suffering but most wouldn’t consider it torture. Being audited by the IRS involves mental suffering .
TCB –
I’m not appealing to Jesse. As I mentioned he is a odd fellow.
For over 100 years, we, the US people has agreed that Waterboarding in torture. 9/11 hasn’t changed our definition.
Maybe torture is like porn, Supreme Court Justice Marshall said that he can’t define it but he knows it when he sees it. Waterboarding is torture. This is clear.
More later.
[...] was voted out of office. What could he have to say that would be of some importance? Why does Liz Cheney keep popping up on my screen? Don’t we know what she is going to say before she says it? [...]