Senator Dodd Speaks in Opposition to FISA Bill on Floor of U.S. Senate
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We have this Administration actually defending waterboarding, a technique invented by the Spanish Inquisition, perfected by the Khmer Rouge, and in between, banned—originally banned for excessive cruelty—by the Gestapo!
Still, some say, “waterboarding’s not torture.”
Oh really?
Listen to the words of Malcolm Nance, a 26-year expert in intelligence and counter-terrorism, a combat veteran, and former Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School. While training American soldiers to resist interrogation, he writes,
I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people….Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word….
It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result…and the obstinacy of the subject.
Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation…usually the person goes into hysterics on the board….When done right it is controlled death.
Controlled death, Mr. President.
And that is not torture? Not according to President Bush’s White House. They have said waterboarding is legal, and that, if it chooses, America will waterboard again.
Surely then, Mr. President, our new Attorney General would condemn torture.
Surely, the nation’s highest law enforcement officer in the land, coming after Alberto Gonzales’s chaotic tenure, would never come before Congress and defend the president’s power to openly break the law.
Would he?
He would, Mr. President.
When he came to the Senate before his confirmation, Michael Mukasey was asked a simple question, bluntly and plainly: “Is waterboarding constitutional?”
He replied:
“If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional.” One would hope for a little more insight from someone so famously well-versed in national security law. But Mr. Mukasey pressed on with the obstinacy of a witness pleading the fifth:
“If it’s torture….If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional.”the whole speech is here:
http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4476
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