In Fact Waterboarding Is an Invigorating Spa Treatment
You knew that after the torture memos came out approving waterboarding, sooner or later some right-wing apologist would explain that Japanese waterboarding of U.S. troops is completely different from our own benign, indeed compassionate, waterboarding. The only question is who would be first and who would be worst.
Ding ding ding ding ding, we have a big winner!!!
Give it up, boys and girls, for Mark Hemingway whose expertise on waterboarding has been garnered from, apparently, years and years of pouring chocolate shakes down his own nose while splayed out on a couch.
Mark got all hopped up and sweaty while watching an exchange between Paul Begala and Ari Fleischer on CNN. Begala had asked Fleischer, who was arguing that waterboarding wasn’t torture, to explain then the U.S. war crimes prosecutions of Japanese soldiers for waterboarding their POWs. Fleischer sat staring at the camera, unable to say a word, for a long period that was as uncomfortable for him as it was delicious for many others.
Never fear, little Ari, here comes Mighty Mark to save the day:
There’s just one problem. What Begala said isn’t true. Begala appears to be referencing Yukio Asano, a Japanese soldier convicted of war crimes.
And Chinsaku Yuki, Seitaro Hata, Takeo Kita, Hideji Nakamura, Genji Mineno, Shigeru Sawada, Yagoheiji Iwata and others, all of whom were convicted by U.S. war crimes tribunals for waterboarding prisoners during World War II. But, hey, what are a few extra Japanese war criminals among friends? And it’s not like it takes some super braniac months to root this information out from dusty archives in the basement of some military base. No, the great Gazoogle will happily provide this information to anyone who can use a computer, which must mean that Mark came down with an advanced case of leprosy and his fingers fell off.
[Asano’s] 15-year sentence was for a host of crimes besides waterboarding. Asano beat people with clubs and burned them with cigarettes — and I think there’s no real debate about whether that consitutes [sic] torture.
Apparently burning someone with a cigarette is way worse than making them think that they’re going to drown and die. It’s a shame that the choice between waterboarding and burning with cigarettes has never been offered to Mark because I would guess that, given the choice, he’d be pressing his jiggly parts on the lighted butt lickety-split.
But wait, there’s more. Asano practiced a much more severe form of waterboarding according to the Post:
Twenty-one years earlier, in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.
In waterboarding as it is practiced by the U.S., cellophane or cloth is placed over the subject’s mouth to keep water out of nose and mouth. Asano was pouring water directly into the mouths and noses of subjects which is considerably more harsh and dangerous.
You see the cloth makes it kinder, gentler, more compassionate torture. Of course, this idea that the cloth keeps water out of the mouth and nose of the victim is a bit of nonsense that Hemingway ripped out of his capacious derrière and, if he had two functioning neurons to rub together, Hemingway would know it.
The purpose of the cloth is, in fact, to make it more difficult to breathe while still allowing water into the mouth and the nasal cavity. Here’s a snippet from the Stephen J. Bradbury memo explaining that.
The wet cloth creates a barrier through which it is difficult – or in some cases not possible – to breathe. … Either in the normal application, or where countermeasures are used, we understand that water may enter — and may accumulate in — the detainee’s mouth and nasal cavity, preventing him from breathing. In addition, you have indicated that the detainee as a countermeasure may swallow water, possibly in significant quantities.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, Chinsaku and Iwata used cloths on their victims. Not that this fleshloaf actually cares about the truth.
Plus, the Japanese didn’t offer the exfoliation treatment and scalp massage so there’s that.
Actually the bit about the cellophane came out in the 2005 rules, which came a couple of years too late for the fellows in question (they being waterboarded in 2002), but hey, that would require actually caring about what you are saying, rather than just being all “America! Hell Yeah!”
That’s the down side of the internet. Back in the day folks like this would be locked up somebody’s attic, and nobody but family would know. Now the full monty of American exceptionalist whackjobbery is on full view every damn day.
I don’t know. Goldfarb might actually beat Hemingway for the trophy:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/04/the_freedom_questioners.asp
I’m actually nauseated.
Back in the day folks like this would be locked up somebody’s attic, and nobody but family would know. Now the full monty of American exceptionalist whackjobbery is on full view every damn day.
Then we need to stop putting computers in our attics!
Sorry Tintin, but meh. Not that the post is bad- far from it- but, com’on, any time a wingnut gets near a keyboard it’s lies, stupidity, unfounded claims, and just general dreck. I was kinda hoping for something with a little more crazy this morning, like a Bachmann post, or perhaps some rage and stubborn ignorance a la Malkin.
I feel bad for you guys sometimes, the wingnuts have been providing such refined, triple-strength mainline looniness of late that it must be hard to top the last post every time and provide the sadlynaughts with the rush they need to get through the day.
I guess what I’m saying is: I need my fix, man. Just a little Gellar or Pantload or something, I’ll do anything. Please. I’m begging here…
Someone should worry less about waterboarding and more about water weight.
/Lookism
Wow, That Girl. That is a nauseating link.
Torturers = American heroes.
Because we’re exceptional!
Tommmcatt, I think subject matter does come into play. This cat is actively defending waterboarding, and being paid by the heirs of Buckley to do so. NRO is getting into deep levels of sociopathy here. I mean sure, Jonah wanted the folks in New Orleans to grow gills, and he’s still widely booked on NPR, but that’s not really….
Aw hell, you’re right. Just standard issue NRO sickness. How these folks get to and from work without being tarred and feathered never ceases to amaze me.
He’s certainly not the first. I’ve been gazoogling madly but I can’t find what I read earlier this week. I think I saw it @ TPM. Anyway, somebody said since the waterboarding made them think they were martyrs it was actually helping the victim in his going to Allah. Or some such crap.
I’ll keep looking.
PeeJ – WashMonthly and Sullivan also posted that.
ITTDGA: I’m just waiting for the day that they suggest we torture someone as punishment for torture. I fear it’s not too far off.
Perhaps, to prove his point, cobag would have the nads to go Hitchens and put his money where his mouth is.
Naaahhhhh.
For those most committed to the ridiculous crusade for terrorist rights, “enhanced interrogation” is not only immoral and illegal, it’s ineffective.
Wow, count the justifications for fascism in that one sentence alone.
I just wish someone would ask one of these dickholes how they would feel about their daughter marrying a guy who’s freshly home from his duties as a torturer.
@Peej: That was Marc Thiessen, loyal Bushie, saying that the Koran allowed the tortured faithful to give with the dirt if they were really super-sure they couldn’t endure anymore.
So… torture is okay… because… it vindicates terrorists who….
HEHINDEEDREADTHEWHOLETHINGHEHINDEEDDISTURBINGIFINDEED
[pop]
Says Tommmmmmmmmetc.:
“I feel bad for you guys sometimes, the wingnuts have been providing such refined, triple-strength mainline looniness of late that it must be hard to top the last post every time and provide the sadlynaughts with the rush they need to get through the day.”
I know the feeling – I just finished the PamAtlas thread a couple down, and I have to say (more in sorrow than in anger, of course) that this just doesn’t measure up. Could you guys pick up your socks a bit and entertain me better?
The Japanese also didn’t have a tracheotomy kit with them when they waterboarded.
Can someone please explain to me how the geniuses at Bush’s legal department believed tracheotomy are NOT likely to result in permanent and serious physical damage in the absence of immediate medical treatment ??
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/24/723455/-They-Added-a-Tracheotomy-Kit-to-the-Torture-Chamber
“Removing fingernails with pliers, while painful, is nothing like the pain associated with death and in fact people often injure their fingers just as seriously while trimming their own nails. Is it really that much worse than removing a hang nail? Of course not. So long as it performed in a carefully control environment with sterile instruments, there is no risk to the subject at all. It is probably even safer when performed in american care than normal manicures in the countries where the terrorists hail from.”
Maybe Hemingway thought covering their mouths and noses with cellophane helped them breathe better, too?
I particularly like the “So Asano beat people with clubs and burned them with cigarettes — and I think there’s no real debate about whether that consitutes torture” following the actual charges in which waterboarding is called “water torture,” and his expecting readers not to notice. Perhaps they all suffer from explosive Alzheimer’s.
I particularly like the “So Asano beat people with clubs and burned them with cigarettes — and I think there’s no real debate about whether that consitutes torture”
We know for a fact that they put detainees through events where they were encouraged to think their lives were in danger.
Mental distress, however, doesn’t count to Doughy Mark and his ilk as “torture”, being as they get their ideas on what “torture” is from their repeat watchings of “Ilsa” movies.
Marlowe said,
April 24, 2009 at 19:21
@Peej: That was Marc Thiessen, loyal Bushie,
As published in the op-ed pages of the Washington Poop.
Fred Hiatt and Jackson Diehl are doing a fine job of destroying my hometown paper’s reputation², forever.
² I grew up in DC, and still call it my hometown. Sorry, Columbus!
Photo caption: “Well, well, well. Take a look at those tea bags…”
Thanks to all for the Thiessen poop.
Has anyone else noticed that no one is mentioning the fact that people DIED during these “harsh interrogation techniques which are not torture, no sirree, not torture at all?” We know there were at least a few. We can credibly suspect there were quite a few more
deathsmurders that we don’t know about. Think about it – we murdered.and burned them with cigarettes — and I think there’s no real debate about whether that consitutes [sic] torture
Good news. We did that too.
Hemingway brings up one problem I’ve always had with our current torture defenders:
According to the Bushies, there was a debate about whether that was torture. The classic WWII torture stories about bamboo slivers under the fingernails, etc- not torture. Unless the pain approximated the pain of “organ failure, impairment of bodily functions, or even death.”, it wasn’t torture.
So the beating with clubs, burning with hot objects, pulling off of fingernails, drilling of teeth w/o anesthetic, beating the soles of the feet, hanging by the arms or hanging upside down, putting of head into box with rats (or insects), etc. isn’t torture.
James Bond was not tortured when he was tied to a chair and had his exposed testicles beaten. John McCain was not tortured. According to Bush Administration standards established by John Yoo and polished by Judge Bybee, that is.
Spencer Ackerman called it: Not Even Jesus Would Forgive What You Do
My, that’s an impressive pair of chins he’s got
[lookism]
The thing that burns my toast the most about guys like that useless waste of skin is that should any other country capture American servicemembers and do the exact same “not torture” things to them, they’ll be the first to be screaming the longest and loudest about how those awful savages can’t do that to Ahmurricuns and All Good Patriotic Ahmurricuns Everywhere should immediately rally around the cause of nuking the abominable savages flat.
It’s like the banh mi from Hell — thick layers of hipocrisy and American Exceptionalism slathered over with rich, creamy wingnut indignation and bad-guy pate served up fresh on a fluffy rice-flour baguette.
What’s a Hemingway?
Walling
Summary:
The Victim is fitted with an over-stuffed hypo-allergenic neck brace in order to prevent possible whiplash and then thrown(Slammed?) against an padded(Fake) wall for awhile and then (presumably) asked questions.
Apparently, the CIA has a really large “PROPS” department.
My, that’s an impressive pair of chins he’s got
He looks like the bastard offspring of Mr. French and Victor Buono as King Tut in the Batman series.
If this is not defined in Urban Dictionary, it should be. Perhaps we can enlist Dan Savage’s help.
Walling
Summary:
The Victim is fitted with an over-stuffed hypo-allergenic neck brace in order to prevent possible whiplash and then thrown(Slammed?) against an padded(Fake) wall for awhile and then (presumably) asked questions.
Just wait till you get to the bit about the Comfy Chair.
Victor Buono as King Tut in the Batman series.
GET OUT!!! I always thought it was Robert Bork who played King Tut!
This is relevant to any discussion of Mark Hemingway.
It’s like the banh mi from Hell — thick layers of hipocrisy and American Exceptionalism slathered over with rich, creamy wingnut indignation and bad-guy pate served up fresh on a fluffy rice-flour baguette.
Don’t forget the crunchy daikon pickles of racism!
What’s a Hemingway?
About three hunnert pounds, looks like.
What’s a Hemingway?
About 220.
Oh, sorry – I should specify kilos instead of just throwing a number out there like that.
Damn, too slow on the draw.
Oh, I just love that guy. He goes, “Oh, it’s not a concrete wall. The guy’s head couldn’t have been bashed in and his brains splattered about. OKAY THEN. THAT MAKES IT ALL FINE.”
And if you need to know more, his blogroll? Onion Ring Lady and American Psycho comes to life, Eugene Volokh.
Xecky was outdrawn but 220 kilos is probably closer to truth than 300 lbs.
Are we sure this guy is really in his late 20s, not 16?
What’s a Hemingway?
Someone had to set it up.
See! They didn’t want terrorists to sneeze or get a rash while being tortured. Totally compassionful.
Ha ha. Maybe that’s what a Hemingway weighs, but aHeming prolly clocks in at needing a sammich or twenty. Don’t tell McClane.
What’s a Hemingway?
If this is not defined in Urban Dictionary, it should be. Perhaps we can enlist Dan Savage’s help.
Under other circumstances, I would define it as a blow job given by two or more people, but to think of actual sex and Mark Hemingway is a bit…
Pardon me, I think I need to throw up.
New rule: anyone who wants to claim that waterboarding (or any other of the lovely enhanced interrogation techniques) is NOT torture, will be required to perform the technique in question on their spouse or children…
If quoting yourself isn’t wanktastic, then certainly publicly congratulating yourself is.
The movie Stalag 17 was released in 1953. The Germans want information from a downed American pilot, so they keep him awake and standing. Nothing else, just awake and standing.
To the 1953 filmmakers, and presumably the audience, it was obvious that this action was torture, and a war crime.
Of course, that reflects a September 10 mentality, or something.
Late as usual. I was gonna say aboot twenny fi’ stone.
If quoting yourself isn’t wanktastic, then certainly publicly congratulating yourself is.
And your point is…?
As far as ideal weight for the slag goes? I’ll defer to the conductor joke.
About two and a half pounds, including the urn.
This was a good one from Peter Brooks in 2005 about the Bybee memo.
Someone had to set us up the bomb?
New Rule for TV News Programs: If you’re going to discuss torture and waterboarding, you gotta have a full waterboarding setup in your studio, and you must immediately offer a deluxe waterboarding session to any wingnut who claims that waterboarding is okey-dokey.
zombie beat me to it (it’s what I get for scanning the thread too quickly). But I will note that many wingnuts would be very wiling to do that to their kids.
—
user@host:~/bin/filters$ python -i ./snfilter.py
Python 2.5.4 (r254:67916, Feb 17 2009, 20:16:45)
[GCC 4.3.3] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> print shitlist;
['actor212']
>>>
Form fill fail.
Oh! I apologize profusely, Simba, for not hewing to your “perfect posting” rules! I hate to think that somehow I inconvenience you in any way from having the best “Sadly,No!” experience possible! Here, let me fluff your pillows for you, Your Highness! I didn’t realize I was in the presence of royalty!
I will work harder in the future to make sure that I live up to your exacting standards!
*snort*
Get it? Got it? Good.
In other words, put me in your killfile if you don’t like what I’m saying, in case you need it spelled out for you.
Hey, is Marko sporting a semi-wingnut face mullet, or is that just a shadow under his protruding lower lip?
Yeah, I know my comments focus on the dude’s ridiculous looks. But his thoughts are even more ludicrous.
I always try to take the path of least resistance; I like to pick the tasty, low-hanging fruit.
a semi-wingnut face mullet
I call ’em “detatched beards”.
Whats’a matter, bub? Can’t deal with a couple sideburns?
Well, I want to know what they were doing before the “guidelines” from the Bushies’ legal eagles came out. Why should we assume the CIA and the military were NOT torturing anyone prior to having so-called legal excuses to do it?
I like to pick the tasty, low-hanging fruit.
Is that a veiled PENIS reference or a teabagging reference?
Wingnuts should be
torturedharshly interrogated if they espouse treason (secession) against the USA.Mark Hemingway = Rumpled piece of shit… Going out as Republican Douche you should have a nicer suit.
Why should we assume the CIA and the military were NOT torturing anyone prior to having so-called legal excuses to do it?
We can’t, but Bush/Yoo et al ensured that it would be that much harder for a 21st Century Church commission to come back and criticize the CIA for excesses. “NUH-UH! It was ALL LEGAL this time!”
Simba and actor, if you gurlz would stop your little cat fight, we’d ALL appreciate it.
Hey, I was merrily posting away before the Posting Police cracked down.
At the same time, however, if said servicemember “broke,” and said something like “America isn’t completely perfect” or “I don’t actually like hot dogs or apple pie,” then these people would be shrieking about what a soft, spoiled momma’s boy he was. He would be held up as evidence that feminists and libs have wussified American soldiers.
Geez, if anyone tried to waterboard Mr. Hemingway he’d drown in his own chin fat.
Hey, is Marko sporting a semi-wingnut face mullet, or is that just a shadow under his protruding lower lip?
Tea stain.
Are we still waiting for Hannity the Manatee to take Olbermann up on his offer to pay $1000 to a veteran’s charity for every minute Sean-boy is waterboarded, after the idiot wingnut shot his mouth off a couple days ago and said he’s willing to be waterboarded to “prove” it isn’t torture?
Come on, Seanie, take the Hitchen’s Challenge. I triple-dog dare you.
Even worse, they’re in our bas3, killing our d00dz.
OK how is walling different than “beat people with clubs” ? The lack of neck braces ?
Come on, Seanie, take the Hitchen’s Challenge. I triple-dog dare you.
Don’t wingnutz get deferments from torture, to match all the deferments they get from military service?
OK how is walling different than “beat people with clubs” ? The lack of neck braces ?
“I clubbed him thirty or forty times” or
“He accidentally walked into the wall thirty or forty times”
You see? Lack of intent by the torturer.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html
Another article with info about the historical view of waterboarding by U.S. government. Wasn’t hard to find. Unless you don’t want to, of course.
at 20:57 You Can’t Put Lipstick On A Repig said,
Hannity will get a note from his doctor forbidding him from being waterboarded due to the boil on his butt.
From cowalker’s link:
In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners’ civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to “subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning.”
The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
So the federal government has already prosecuted members of our own US law enforcement who abuse the power of their office and torture prisoners. This looks like a no-brainer to me. Time to move on it.
But I will note that many wingnuts would be very wiling to do that to their kids.
well, Pam Atlas, sure. Maybe Cheney.
But while the crazier ones like Beck and Hannity are somewhat willing to offer themselves up for it (and Hitchens as well, speaking of crazy), the question of moral stain to the one performing it remains, which would be neatly solved by making the wingnut the torturer. Plus, I find it hard to believe that even the wingnuts would be comfortable doing that to their loved ones.
I don’t think that’s a lower lip.
I think that’s an upper chin.
The saddest part about this whole affair isn’t even the wingnuts flailing about trying to pretend that everybody, from the outset, hasn’t known full well that this was torture and is illegal, but the slowly crumbling assumption of entitlement to not being prosecuted for anything, ever, that they are beginning to realize has finally left the room in disgust.
Bed. Made. Sleep in it.
Bring Solo and the Wookie to me.
Inspired by another thread, I propose:
To Hemingway = To wipe the shit off a royal butt.
Anybody remember that Arlo Guthrie song about Steven Biko? The one where a ZARP is supposedly telling the tale of how they invited him down to headquarters for a friendly little chat and then watched in amazement as he beat himself up and threw himself out the window? I can’t think of the title and it’s been driving me crazy.
Ugly little spud, isn’t he?
Why should we assume the CIA and the military were NOT torturing anyone prior to having so-called legal excuses to do it?
Because they knew it didn’t work and would get you crap info. But then the Bushies started filling the ranks (an appropriate term here) with bootlickers and psychos who were hellbent on “proving” 9/11 was planned by Saddam. You don’t have to be moral to oppose torture (although it helps!) you just have to be smart enough to realize that it doesn’t work.
I think he can hear you, Ray.
Ahhh.
I just wish someone would ask one of these dickholes how they would feel about their daughter marrying a guy who’s freshly home from his duties as a torturer.
Probably just fine with it
as long as he’s not a Jew or colored.I’ve seen variations on this argument before, but that may be the stupidest. There are at least four torture techniques normally referred to as water torture or waterboarding, and the specifics can vary a bit within that, but all of them – all of them – are torture and illegal. Waterboarding, as it’s normally meant, is a form of controlled drowning that simulates dying. It’s torture the first time, and the 182nd times after that.
years and years of pouring chocolate shakes down his own nose while splayed out on a couch.
this explains why when he looks over his shoulder all he can see is miles and miles of his ass.
Must suck to be Hemingway. When he signed up as an apologist for the actions of the Cheney administration, perhaps he didn’t realise what a concentration of psychopaths he’d be working for, or how depraved and conscience-shocking those actions would be. Little by little he’s been dragged down to their level, each week searching for a rationale for administration actions that are only marginally more atrocious than the revelations of the previous week, until finally he finds himself knee-deep in the Seventh Circle. I kind of feel sorry for him…
No. Was there really any doubt about Cheney’s personality? If memory serves, only a couple of days after the Twin Towers, he was announcing that America would have to ‘work on the dark side’ to punish the guilty parties. The thought of breaking laws, extending his authority, and working behind the scenes gave him a manly-man kind of tingle inside, and 9/11 gave him an excuse to do what he wanted.
Then you have other Republican ideologues / apologists like Krauthammer who’s been arguing literally for decades (with frequent invocations of a ticking-time-bomb fantasy) that torture should be a standard component of the American system of international-law enforcement. 1
I mean, these guys were in such a rush to normalise waterboarding and start extracting false confessions that they couldn’t be bothered checking the US case law — which would have showed them that it is indeed well-established as a war crime and a form of torture. 2
Thereby creating such a quandary for Hemingway, who now has to choose between (a) lying about the indefensible in order to defend it; or (b) looking for a new gig.
But he could have chosen (b), so fuck him.
1. I am loath to speculate about Krauthammer’s psychology, since I know a number of paraplegics whose minds don’t dwell all the time on ideas of systematically disabling the bodies of other people.
2. From the perspective of of Cheney et al., the argument that “Torture doesn’t work because it produces false confessions” is not valid. They wanted false confessions (linking Hussein to al Qaeda) that would match the false evidence they had previously fed into the intelligence system, and they chose the appropriate interrogation methods.
At the same time, however, if said servicemember “broke,” and said something like “America isn’t completely perfect” or “I don’t actually like hot dogs or apple pie,” then these people would be shrieking about what a soft, spoiled momma’s boy he was. He would be held up as evidence that feminists and libs have wussified American soldiers.
Until, of course, he ran for president on the Republican ticket.
since I know a number of paraplegics whose minds don’t dwell all the time on ideas of systematically disabling the bodies of other people.
Ever read Ronin?
“He’d want to chop…
He’d want to chop all their arms and legs…
…it’s like some sick joke!”
Monsters with people faces…
These asshole are not even self-aware enough to recognize that they are arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Naw, his hands were numb from wanking 14/7.
What was that about lit cigarettes?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/patt-ii-soldier-who-kille_b_191148.html
run “as long as it works”
*DELETE*
run “we must protect our heros in Iraq”
*DELETE*
run “the situation is under control”
*DELETE*
run “I am an omniscient avatar from the (n+3)th dimension & I can make albino stoats shoot out of my fucking dick so it’s actually a law of nature that you have to agree with me, you dumb FUCK”
*ABORT*
end
Is that a photo of his cameo in The Birds, or is it his cameo in Topaz? I love how he’s always in there somewhere.
Good ee-vening!
From the perspective of of Cheney et al., the argument that “Torture doesn’t work because it produces false confessions” is not valid. They wanted false confessions (linking Hussein to al Qaeda) that would match the false evidence they had previously fed into the intelligence system, and they chose the appropriate interrogation methods.
This is what gets me the most. I mean, I knew pretty much already what was going on, but the latest confirmation spells it out: they were torturing other people, in order to CREATE fake evidence, in order to brainwash US. It’s simply stunning. Sadism in the service of propaganda. It seems Orwell lacked sufficient imagination to predict the last eight years.
The cloth excuse reminds me of the death machine/torture device in Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony”
The whole country was screaming for blood after 9/11. CIA Director George Tenet, the guy in charge of the waterboarding program, is a Democrat. But now that the media thinks its safe again, its time to scapegoat some mid-level Republican lawyers. If Yoo and Bybee didn’t approve, do you think that would have stopped the waterboarding? Tenet would just have gotten some other lawyers.