Cheney confirms that detainees were subjected to water-boarding...

[bridgit]

'WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney has confirmed that U.S. interrogators subjected captured senior al-Qaida suspects to a controversial interrogation technique called "water-boarding," which creates a sensation of drowning.

Cheney indicated that the Bush administration doesn't regard water-boarding as torture and allows the CIA to use it. "It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney said at one point in an interview.

Cheney's comments, in a White House interview on Tuesday with a conservative radio talk show host, appeared to reflect the Bush administration's view that the president has the constitutional power to do whatever he deems necessary to fight terrorism.'

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15847918.htm

[Erika]

1. Cheney who was a chicken hawk coward

defends torture on others. So much for him being Xtian. He and his wife always acted like they had ice water in their veins.

[Maraya1969]

2. I'd like to water-board him. He'd probably cry like a little girl

[Jensen]

5. That chicken hawk would die the second you strapped him on the board!

[originalpckelly]

13. He would shock himself to death with his little defibrillator.

OH GOD THIS IS REAL THEY TORTURED PEOPLE! :cry:

[benny05]

3. Crummy, but rethugs don't care

They need to know that this practice encourages our enemies to do worse things..

[CoffeeCat]

4. I rarely swear, but I just need to say...

...a big Fuck You to Mr. Dick Cheney.

I hate this man with the passion of a thousand burning suns.

"It's a no brainer for me." Well of course, you slimy, disgusting, conscious-lacking piece of shit. You have no soul.
You are an inhuman monster. You are so disgusting and fucking off the track---it's amazing that you haven't rotted
from the inside yet.

Oh wait. What is it...THREE heart attacks so far? Ahhhh...you ARE rotting from the inside.

The fourth one can't come soon enough, either!

I'm sick and tired of these bastards doing their best Nazi impressions IN OUR NAME! These pieces of slime are
so embarrassing! They are repulsive beyond measure!!

[oldtime dfl_er]

6. I cling to the hope

that these kinds of statements will FORM the case against these insane tyrants, once we come to our senses and try them for war crimes. I'm not kidding.

[w13rd0]

7. I support the water-boarding...

...of Dick Cheney. Hey, betcha he'll give up the minutes to those secret energy meetings...

It's HARMLESS, really! So my saying I want Dick and Bush waterboarded shouldn't be any problem at all, right? I also think they should be stripped naked and chained to metal bunks with their dirty underwear over their heads. If it's not torture, they'll do it to show us how uncontroversial it is...right?

Hey! On EDIT, why not electrical clamps to the nipples and balls for Dick? I'm sure that would be fine by him, right?

[originalpckelly]

8. This fella is truly an evil man...

we really are facing evil "human" beings aren't we? These people are really nazis aren't they? Winning this election may be the only way to save our nation.

[bridgit]

24. the stakes are very high indeed when torture is spoken of so blithely...

[OwnedByFerrets]

9. God, I want them tried at the Hague.

And found guilty of war crimes.

[bridgit]

10. i think it would be a very short trial indeed...

[originalpckelly]

11. Well look at Saddam...

and all the problems there. Hopefully it would go quickly.

Shit if this gets into the mainstream news media, these guys have just lost congress and they will be resigning soon.

[bridgit]

17. so your saying bush & cheney would stand around in their cells in...

underwear & then argue with a judge maybe half their age with a maniacal glaze in their eyes and wagging fingers before a world shaking it's bemused head :shrug:

while i hear you talking i somehow feel it will be different :hi:

[originalpckelly]

12. Why isn't this story on the front page of DU yet?

I am curious, it is like finding the smoking gun watergate tapes.

[Phredicles]

14. "A no-brainer" - describes everything these monsters do.

Maybe The Hague is too good for them.

[Mr_Spock]

15. He's gonna burn in Hell, Hell, he's gonna burn in Hell

sing it!

[troubleinwinter]

16. Waterboarding was a favorite of the Khymer Rouge

September 28, 2006

This Is What Waterboarding Looks Like

The crux of the issue before Congress can be boiled down to a simple question: Is waterboarding torture? Anybody who considers this practice to be "torture lite" or merely a "tough technique" might want to take a trip to Phnom Penh. The Khymer Rouge were adept at torture, and there was nothing "lite" about their methods. Incidentally, the waterboard in these photo wasn't merely one among many torture devices highlighted at the prison museum. It was one of only two devices singled out for highlighting (the other was another form of water-torture--a tank that could be filled with water or other liquids; I have photos of that too.) There was an outdoor device as well, one the Khymer Rouge didn't have to construct: chin-up bars. (The prison where the museum is located had been a school before the Khymer Rouge took over). These bars were used for "stress positions"-- another practice employed under current US guidelines. At the Khymer Rouge prison, there is a tank of water next to the bars. It was used to revive prisoners for more torture when they passed out after being placed in stress positions.

The similarity between practices used by the Khymer Rouge and those currently being debated by Congress isn't a coincidence. As has been amply documented ("The New Yorker" had an excellent piece, and there have been others), many of the "enhanced techniques" came to the CIA and military interrogators via the SERE schools, where US military personnel are trained to resist torture if they are captured by the enemy. The specific types of abuse they're taught to withstand are those that were used by our Cold War adversaries. Why is this relevant to the current debate? Because the torture techniques of North Korea, North Vietnam, the Soviet Union and its proxies--the states where US military personnel might have faced torture--were NOT designed to elicit truthful information. These techniques were designed to elicit CONFESSIONS. That's what the Khymer Rouge et al were after with their waterboarding, not truthful information.

Bottom line: Not only do waterboarding and the other types of torture currently being debated put us in company with the most vile regimes of the past half-century; they're also designed specifically to generate a (usually false) confession, not to obtain genuinely actionable intel. This isn't a matter of sacrificing moral values to keep us safe; it's sacrificing moral values for no purpose whatsoever.

These photos are important because most of us have never seen an actual, real-life waterboard. The press typically describes it in the most anodyne ways: a device meant to "simulate drowning" or to "make the prisoner believe he might drown." But the Khymer Rouge were no jokesters, and they didn't tailor their abuse to the dictates of the Geneva Convention. They-- like so many brutal regimes--made waterboarding one of their primary tools for a simple reason: it is one of the most viciously effective forms of torture ever devised.

http://www.davidcorn.com/archives/2006/09/this_is_what_wa.php

...one of the actual waterboards used by the Khymer Rouge.

[Disturbed]

18. It is obvious that Cheney feels that he is immune from any

prosecution. Also, he appparently feels that the American people are supportive of waterboarding and that he is confident that this method is appropriate as are the secret prisons and rendition. What has America become?

[AtomicKitten]

19. Really?

So, I guess all the "We do not tortue" bullshit was just that. Bullshit.

No worries. The Democratic House will get on that pile of lies in the corner and dispense some justice, maybe even waterboarding now that it's been deemed a perfectly find method of interrogation.

[originalpckelly]

21. We do not torture is the new "I'm not a crook"...

because it is obviously such a lie.

[bridgit]

22. g.w. bush, redefining the republican shame of r.m. nixon...

for generations to come

[sakabatou]

20. Fuck. You.

[donco6]

23. So if water-boarding is a "no-brainer", what would be a "brainer"?

Breaking legs? Electroshock? What, pray tell, would give Mr. Cheney pause?