Cheney confirms that detainees were subjected to water-boarding

[truthpusher]

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15847918.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Posted on Wed, Oct. 25, 2006

Cheney confirms that detainees were subjected to water-boarding

By Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers

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.

(snip)

The radio interview Tuesday was the first time that a senior Bush administration official has confirmed that U.S. interrogators used water-boarding against important al Qaida suspects, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged chief architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Mohammad was captured in Pakistan on March 1, 2003, and turned over to the CIA.

(snip)

In an interview on Tuesday, Scott Hennen of WDAY Radio in Fargo, N.D., told Cheney that listeners had asked him to "let the vice president know that if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves American lives."

(snip)

"I do agree," Cheney replied, according to a transcript of the interview released Wednesday. "And I think the terrorist threat, for example, with respect to our ability to interrogate high-value detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that's been a very important tool that we've had to be able to secure the nation."

(snip)

"Would you agree that a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?" asked Hennen.

"It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the vice president `for torture.' We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in," Cheney replied. "We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that."

(snip)

link: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15847918.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

[volstork]

1. It seems to me

that an easy definition of torture is anything you would not want done to you yourself. Wonder how long Cheney would last strapped to a waterboard?

[LibDemAlways]

2. We'll never know. We're paying for the rat bastard to

be kept in a hermetically sealed, fully protected bubble at all times.

Considering he's a total chickshit who got multiple deferments to stay the hell out of Vietnam so others could die in his place, I'd speculate he wouldn't last 2 seconds.

[kestrel91316]

3. I don't know, but I wish we could find just one brave soul with

the courage to try to find out.

I'm SOOOOOO glad waterboarding is now legal!

[EFerrari]

14. Welcome to DU, volstork. Good question. n/t

[caledesi]

34. Cheney is a sick MF.

BTW, if you are interested in viewing exactly what waterboarding is view go to:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4Fk1uE1SPOo

Believe me, I hesitated at first, but the person is DEMONSTRATING what it is.

[Straight Shooter]

4. A dunk in water?

I suppose a concussion is "a little bump on the head," then. A stab wound is "a little cut."


Cheney is certifiably insane.

[valerief]

5. I think waterboarding may be an effective treatment for insanity. nt

[Miss Chybil]

21. I guess he won't mind when our troops are subjected to this type

of treatment. Of course, he won't. He doesn't mind about anything that happens to them.

[Solly Mack]

6. So who's going to bring him to justice?

[treestar]

7. That this "saves American lives" is a non-sequitur

They just say that in hopes the masses will just buy it.

We are just to assume that they revealed their plots under torture? They may have claimed they had those plots, but they couldn't be carried out because they'd been captured. They could have been making them up right there.

They open the door to captured Americans being tortured, and presumably, revealing information under that torture that will let those torturers kill more Americans. If others will give up information upon being tortured, then why wouldn't be assume that all of us would, and that would include our troops?

In fact, people can resist torture, too. People have done it.

Then what do they plan to do to those they tortured who really didn't know anything? Apologize?

[Barrett808]

8. Loathsome.

The only word I have for it.

How did it come to this?

[sabra]

9. a little splash of water, no big deal....

:mad:

[Jack Rabbit]

10. This is not torture?

Here's What Left

[MadMaddie]

11. You know what....let them keep bragging about the crimes they

are committing...and let them keep getting filmed and recorded admitting to the crimes that they approved and pushed....because the evidence will be used against them when they are prosecuted...

Keep on talking * cabal..keep on talking...

[peacetalksforall]

12. Let the world know - MOST citizens of this country are SANE!

Are compassionate. Are geniune humans,

[Gman]

13. It will also be an no-brainer for the International Criminal Court

when they get him on trial.

[Eugene]

15. Cheney says again voting Democratic encourages the terrorists.

On the White House web site:

Interview of the Vice President by Scott Hennen, WDAY at Radio Day at the White House
The Vice President's Office

-snip-

Q Are the terrorists trying to influence our election in your view?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think they're very much aware of our political calendar here,
I really do. And when you see the kinds of things that happened this year, for
example, when the Democratic Party in Connecticut purged Joe Lieberman, in effect,
drummed him out of the party on the grounds that he had supported the President
in the global war on terror, that sends a message to the terrorists overseas that
their basic strategy of trying to break the will of the American people may, in fact,
work.

-snip-

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061024-7.html

Cheney also says "things are going along swimmingly" with the "War on Terror"
amid a torrent of spin, lies, and pro-Repug spew.

:grr::grr::grr:

[Straight Shooter]

23. Lieberman supports bush on the Iraq Invasion/War/Occupation

None of which have a thing to do with the so-called war on terror.

Lie, lie, lie with impunity, Cheney.

[HereSince1628]

16. Can someone comment of the credibility of McClatchy newspapers?

I never heard of them.

[Barrett808]

24. Used to be Knight-Ridder.

Very reliable, in my estimation.

[HereSince1628]

28. Thanks, that helps.

[truthisfreedom]

17. show us the video, mr. cheney. show us the footage so we can judge for

ourselves and eliminate this "dunk in the water" whitewashing.

[Ouabache]

18. I'm certain God has a WET corner of Hell reserved for this evil

old fuck.

[struggle4progress]

19. In 1947, the U.S. Called It a War Crime (WP 5 Oct 06)

Waterboarding Historically Controversial
In 1947, the U.S. Called It a War Crime; in 1968, It Reportedly Caused an Investigation

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 5, 2006; Page A17

... 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.

"Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. "We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II," he said ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100402005.html

[immoderate]

20. Sounds like a good precedent.

:mad:

--IMM

[Judi Lynn]

26. That form of torture is recorded going back as far as the Italian Inquisition. n/t

[Canuckistanian]

22. Cheney is in the last throes, if you will, of sanity

My God, has there ever been a President or Vice-President so bereft of human compassion as Dick and George?

They must feed off each other, each one daring the other to sink to new lows of depravity.

Their reign will end badly, mark my words.

[Rose Siding]

25. He can't even acknowledge that it's torture?

How can that be? It seems so simple. It's wrong. I wouldn't like to see it used on ANYONE. I get queasy when DUers suggest using it on HIM. -If it's wrong, It's. Wrong. I'm anti-torture, period

And he crawls around in a conversation with a CONCURRING wingnut, right there in a tent at the WH on MY DIME. What a thing.

[lumpy]

27. kick

for Cheney's admission of war crimes.

[truthpusher]

29. .

[Bake]

30. "Robust" - god I hate that word

Cheney has a "robust" ego. Smirk's stupidity is "robust." On second thought, maybe it's a good word - in certain contexts.

Bake

[0007]

31. Wow! This sick war criminal knows how to lay it on heavy and thick, ' eh?

[LeftHander]

32. If it is not torture then he should submit to it then....

After all it's not torture...so he won't be harmed in any way.

Come on Dick...lay down on the baord, strap in and let them dunk your head under water or pour water on your face until you have to be revived becasue you STOPPED FUCKING BREATHING..!!!

And tell me then that waterboarding is not torture.

[goforit]

33. Well, Cheney, you are being considered a terroist to other countries, how

would you like to be treated in the same manner by other countries?

Once you approve of henious treatments, you certainly must expect it from your enemies as well.

[The Stranger]

35. Arrest that man now.

The law requires it.