Conservative CHICAGO radio hosts gets water boarded, and lasts six seconds before saying its torture
Chicago radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided he'd get himself water boarded to prove the technique wasn't torture
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
THE ROAD TO TORTURE IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS!
Dandy Dick is on his Torture Tour trying to sell the idea of the "Goodness" behind the torture done on our behalf during the Bush Administration.
He was on the airwaves yet again yesterday morning at the same time that President Obama himself was delivering an extremely eloquent address at the National Archives on the whole torture and enemy combatant/detainee saga. I listened to both and it was a stark contrast to say the least. The president couldn't have been more cogent, concise, measured and searing in his overall assessment of the "mess" he has inherited from the Bush Crime Family.
Let's face it, Dick likes to break bones. He doesn't make any "bones" about that. He doesn't have any real cajones of his own so this is his way of acquiring any sense of manhood. For Dick, it's a matter of let's have a beer and break some bones. That'll learn those commie/Muslim-loving /liberal/ latte/ sushi/ Gucci/ chardonnay/ West Wing/ granola/ yogurt-gulping/ book-reading/ cardigan sweater-wearing/ post-graduate/ Volvo-driving/ NPR-listening types.
There's a constitutional law principle involved here. You might be familiar with it from one of your college classes in Con Law - "Clear And Present Danger." Dick Cheney and his ilk represent precisely that.
In a sense Cheney's public address yesterday brings to mind two prior sad episodes in American history that confronted a sitting president involving a similar chain-of-command dilemma now facing President Obama, i.e. how to deal with a "loose caboose" or "misguided missile" public figure. In April 1951 General Douglas MacArthur was finally fired by President Harry Truman for insubordination. It seems that General MacArthur wanted to go north of the 38th parallel in North Korea in defiance of President Truman's explicit orders to the contrary. Going back further in American history Franklin Delano Roosevelt finally had to deal with Democratic Senator Huey Long of Louisiana. In a national radio address on February 23, 1934, in the depths of the depression, Senator Long unveiled his “Share Our Wealth” plan that was nothing short of rampant demagoguery.
We are faced with a similar situation today in the person of Dick Cheney and it's worse this time around because it actually involves BOTH insubordination and demagoguery. It's time for this sitting president to make Darth Vader/Dick Cheney understand in no uncertain terms: I'm the president and you're not, Dickie boy and your steppin' where you best not be steppin'. Frankly, it's time for a little Whoop-Ass for the "Dick."
Dick Cheney is a Clear And Present Danger!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
CALL IT ENHANCED INTERROGATION - IT'S STILL TORTURE!
I considered placing an image of water boarding in this blog entry but I think we all know by now what the CIA has been up to over the last few years. Far and away the most recently discussed abhorrent technique employed by our intelligence services during the post-9/11 period has been water boarding. The actual journey into this new and uncharted territory coincided with the verbal go-ahead given in July 2002 by then-acting Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice. Ms. Rice afterwards lapsed into amnesia and could not recall ever making such a decision, either verbally or in writing. My, what a web we weave when we first deceive.
The two poster boys used for the justification of water boarding by the Bush Administration are: Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the mastermind behind 9/11 - by his own admission and Abu Zubaydah, a small-time operative in Al-Qaeda. Both were water boarded numerous times. In fact, KSM, as Mohammad is commonly referred to, was water boarded 183 times in one month. Zubaydah had the dubious distinction of undergoing that torture process a mere 83 times.
Where has this left the United States. In moral shambles, that's where. To the proponents of torture who say it elicited valuable intelligence (like our former Vice-President Dick Cheney) - I have just one word. Poppycock! To date there is absolutely no evidence that either of these men gave any intelligence remotely useful to the CIA regarding Al-Qaeda or its secrets. Virtually all experts skilled in the art of interrogation have said that the information extracted from torture is unreliable since it is given merely to appease the torturers and as such cannot be considered reliable in any sense of the word.
My advice to the powers-that-be is simply this: Appoint an independent prosecutor immediately! Don't wait until later on this year as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggests pending the completion by the Senate Intelligence Committee of its own investigation into this heinous chapter in our nation's history.
Justice must be swift but fair. What is undeniable at this juncture after the release of the 4 torture memos and the report by the Senate Armed Services Committee is that the orders and the origin behind this torture program emanated from the White House, specifically the Office of the Vice President and the President. It was in turn set in motion by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld under the false legal premises provided by the torture memo authors, John Yoo and Jay Bybee. William Haynes, acting General Counsel to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld served as the liaison between the White House/Justice Department and the Pentagon in his capacity as the personal conduit for delivery to Rumsfeld of the torture memo legal opinions.
Anyway you slice it or dice it this nation is guilty in the eyes of the world, with or without a special prosecutor or independent commission.
The horse is out of the barn, the toothpaste is out of the tube.
I'm just waiting for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bybee, Yoo and Haynes to meet the same fate as was faced by the Nazi war criminals we prosecuted at the Nuremberg trial in 1946. Perhaps we should make sure they're not walking around with a potassium cyanide capsule like Goering at Nuremberg.
The two poster boys used for the justification of water boarding by the Bush Administration are: Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the mastermind behind 9/11 - by his own admission and Abu Zubaydah, a small-time operative in Al-Qaeda. Both were water boarded numerous times. In fact, KSM, as Mohammad is commonly referred to, was water boarded 183 times in one month. Zubaydah had the dubious distinction of undergoing that torture process a mere 83 times.
Where has this left the United States. In moral shambles, that's where. To the proponents of torture who say it elicited valuable intelligence (like our former Vice-President Dick Cheney) - I have just one word. Poppycock! To date there is absolutely no evidence that either of these men gave any intelligence remotely useful to the CIA regarding Al-Qaeda or its secrets. Virtually all experts skilled in the art of interrogation have said that the information extracted from torture is unreliable since it is given merely to appease the torturers and as such cannot be considered reliable in any sense of the word.
My advice to the powers-that-be is simply this: Appoint an independent prosecutor immediately! Don't wait until later on this year as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggests pending the completion by the Senate Intelligence Committee of its own investigation into this heinous chapter in our nation's history.
Justice must be swift but fair. What is undeniable at this juncture after the release of the 4 torture memos and the report by the Senate Armed Services Committee is that the orders and the origin behind this torture program emanated from the White House, specifically the Office of the Vice President and the President. It was in turn set in motion by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld under the false legal premises provided by the torture memo authors, John Yoo and Jay Bybee. William Haynes, acting General Counsel to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld served as the liaison between the White House/Justice Department and the Pentagon in his capacity as the personal conduit for delivery to Rumsfeld of the torture memo legal opinions.
Anyway you slice it or dice it this nation is guilty in the eyes of the world, with or without a special prosecutor or independent commission.
The horse is out of the barn, the toothpaste is out of the tube.
I'm just waiting for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bybee, Yoo and Haynes to meet the same fate as was faced by the Nazi war criminals we prosecuted at the Nuremberg trial in 1946. Perhaps we should make sure they're not walking around with a potassium cyanide capsule like Goering at Nuremberg.
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