‘Not Like Putting Burning Coals On People’s Bodies’

[Ichingcarpenter]

What can we say about this asshole that hasn't already been said?



Yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) “reluctantly acknowledged” that he doesn’t believe waterboarding is torture. According to the Connecticut Post, Lieberman downplayed the severity of the waterboarding because it doesn’t inflict permanent physical damage:

In the worst case scenario — when there is an imminent threat of a nuclear attack on American soil — Lieberman said that the president should be able to certify the use of waterboarding on a detainee suspected of knowing vital details of the plot.

“You want to be able to use emergency tech to try to get the information out of that person,” Lieberman said. <…>

“It is not like putting burning coals on people’s bodies. The person is in no real danger. The impact is psychological,” Lieberman said.



http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/15/lieberman-waterboarding/

[niyad]

1. let's see what you think after it is done to you, you jerk.

[DesertFlower]

2. i think i would die if i was waterboarded.

my terrible fear of drowning would probably give me a heart attack.

it's torture. no ifs, ands, of buts.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Well, come on down, Joe, and let's give it a try. We'll be glad to try a little water boarding on

you first and then some of those hot coals.

[thecrow]

4. Shouldn't we go about bringing those Japanese back from the dead

before we start hailing waterboarding as "not being torture"?
You know, those Japanese citizens we PUT TO DEATH for waterboarding our military personnel?

[SoFlaJet]

5. It simply amazes me that of the two people in the congress

who should MOST be AGAINST torture are playing politics on the issue. John McCain WAS tortured and 6 million Jews were killed almost every one suffered torture at the hands of the Nazis

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. "Verschärfte Vernehmung"

The phrase "Verschärfte Vernehmung" is German for "enhanced interrogation". Other translations include "intensified interrogation" or "sharpened interrogation". It's a phrase that appears to have been concocted in 1937, to describe a form of torture that would leave no marks, and hence save the embarrassment pre-war Nazi officials were experiencing as their wounded torture victims ended up in court. The methods, as you can see above, are indistinguishable from those described as "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the president. As you can see from the Gestapo memo, moreover, the Nazis were adamant that their "enhanced interrogation techniques" would be carefully restricted and controlled, monitored by an elite professional staff, of the kind recommended by Charles Krauthammer, and strictly reserved for certain categories of prisoner. At least, that was the original plan.

Also: the use of hypothermia, authorized by Bush and Rumsfeld, was initially forbidden. 'Waterboarding" was forbidden too, unlike that authorized by Bush. As time went on, historians have found that all the bureaucratic restrictions were eventually broken or abridged. Once you start torturing, it has a life of its own. The "cold bath" technique - the same as that used by Bush against al-Qahtani in Guantanamo - was, according to professor Darius Rejali of Reed College,

[Der Blaue Engel]

9. I wish I could recommend your post

That is truly chilling. :scared:

I keep telling people that this is what is happening, but they roll their eyes and say "you can't make comparisons to Nazis." (I even had a DUer recently tell me that I had belittled the 6 million Jews who died in the holocaust by daring to speak this truth.)

I'm bookmarking your post for the next person who says that to me.

[debbierlus]

6. He is such a foul disgusting lil worm of a 'man'

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

8. It's sad that public discourse in the US has been reduced to this.

It really is. I don't know what else to say.

[spooky3]

10. Horrifying AND illogical

So if Act X is one example of torture, then Act B cannot be another?

So an act can't be torture if it is "psychological"? How about thousands of days of solitary confinement?

So all acts of waterboarding, no matter who performs them, are perfectly safe physically, with no chance of physical harm?

etc.

Just when you think you couldn't think less of Joe Lieberman, he gives you yet another reason to revise your view...