torture

With all the debate going on about the full body scanners, I think I have come up with a great solution. Why don’t we just waterboard all airline passengers? Think about it:

• Waterboarding provides accurate and reliable intel
• Waterboarding isn’t torture.
• Waterboarding is nothing but a “dip in the pool”.

So let’s drop the body scanners, saving billions of dollars, and institute 3 hour waterboarding sessions for all airline passengers. I say before hand though we run this idea past the Republicans to make sure they are on board.

I was reading the excellent post by Sully in which he describes Chris Wallace’s interview of Dick Cheney as “a teenage girl interviewing the Jonas Brothers”. While reading it I started thinking about all the Cheney interviews in the past, and believe me there wasn’t many out there.

When the going got tough, Cheney always took to the airwaves. He would jump into the lion’s den cuddly kitten factory known as Rush Limbaugh and FOX News. The man has never faced an actual interview. He hasn’t been pushed on any of his views or actions, essentially castrating the entire fourth estate.

Is it any wonder that Eric Holder is investigating torture? If Cheney would have actually defended the process instead of saying “we say its ok, so its ok”, then we might be in a different position today. Instead he exhibits the signs of a Megalomanic. Power given to such a man is a danger to any democracy, and we saw what it did to ours.

If Cheney really believes what he did was right then he wouldn’t fear facing actual interviewers. He would proudly take his defense to other interviewers like Jon Stewart or Rachael Maddow. But he can’t have his beliefs or power questioned, so instead he can only appear with friends. Dick Cheney is the biggest coward to ever serve this country, and people need to start calling him on it.

It is still torture and Mancow decided to share his waterboarding experience with Keith Olbermann last night

Of course this probably means Mancow will be banned from appearing on FOX news now. I mean how could he go into the enemy zone known as MSNBC?

Either Mika Brzezinski is trying to spin right wing talking points or she is just downright stupid. Check out this exchanged from Morning Joe where Ed Schultz had to take on the entire cast. Pay particular attention around the 4:20 mark:

While Schultz is talking about the terror plot broken up by law enforcement yesterday he points out that no one had to be torture and that this was the product of good old police work. Mika responds with “well there was an informant”.

Could she really be that dense? Is being an informant somehow synonymous with waterboarding?

Police have used informants for years. All are voluntary. Some might do it as a feeling of “civic duty” and other’s might offer the information as a way to reduce their own punishment, but it is voluntary.

Mika tries to call herself a “liberal”, but she sure doesn’t show it, and if she is a liberal then she makes all liberals look bad.

Not only is Jesse Ventura an ex-governor and ex-wrestler, but he is also a former Navy SEAL who went through SEAR training. Now he is one of the most outspoken opponents of torture. He has been on fire the past several days schooling numerous talking heads about waterboarding and saying that it is in fact torture.

TBogg makes a very interesting and accurate point that Nancy Pelosi has become the next Lynndie England:

Due to "process" reporting we have learned that the Torture Years were not the responsibility of the Administration who demanded them, the legal counsel who found legal justification for them, the medical personnel who stood by and watched, the media talking heads who justified torture based upon a TV show, or the actual torturers who unquestioningly did the dirty work.

Now the Village elders have decided that Nancy Pelosi is a witch who turned us into awful people and by burning her we will be made whole again.

I have had this same feeling the entire past week as I hear the media follow the Republican lead of the witch hunt against Pelosi. Perhaps this could sum up a typical media discussion on torture.

“Yes the United States was involved in what could be called torture. Oh no.”

“OMG! Nancy Pelosi knew we were involved in torture. How could she let this go one?”

Perhaps the most telling of this narrative comes from Newt Gingrich. Here’s what Gingrich told Hannity this week:

"Nancy Pelosi was the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee. She had an absolute obligation to know what was going on. She had an absolute obligation to speak up."

So back in 2002, which was at the height of terrorism paranoia, the Republicans are now saying that Pelosi should have said “we are torturing!”. And how would the Republicans, the ranking party in the House, have responded? Pelosi would have ended up being tortured herself, by both the media and the Republicans.

Here’s good old Joe Scarborough basically accusing the FBI agents who told Senate yesterday that torture didn’t work of lying. This is really amazing.