actual NBC article title "Cheney endorses simulated drowning"

[Robbien]

Dick Cheney, US vice-president, has endorsed the use of "water boarding" for terror suspects and confirmed that the controversial interrogation technique was used on Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the senior al-Qaeda operative now being held at Guantánamo Bay.

Mr Cheney was responding to a conservative radio interviewer who asked whether water boarding, which involves simulated drowning, was a "no-brainer" if the information it yielded would save American lives. "It's a no-brainer for me," Mr Cheney replied.

. . .

"For a while there, I was criticised as being the 'vice-president for torture'," Mr Cheney added. "We don't torture . . . 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 programme without torture and we need to be able to do that."

Mr Cheney said recent legislation passed by Congress allowed the White House to continue its aggressive interrogation programme.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15431835

It just surprises me that the title was allowed to stay. The same title was used in MSN Money, MSNBC and Financial Times UK. Wonders never cease.

[colonel odis]

1. "robust interrogation program" is one of the all-time great euphemisms.

[Robbien]

4. Yep. Appears they got tired of the "abuse" euphemism

and got fancy when chosing the new euphemism for torture. This fancy choice won't last long because it won't do well in cablenews sound bites, too many syllables for the FauxNews blond bimbets.

[Mandate My Ass]

6. "robust"

def: "formerly-secret-because-clearly-illegal" programme.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

11. Just call it by its military acronym...

RIP.

[Robbien]

12. That couldn't be a coincidence, could it? RIP?

that is just evil

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Hey, he just wants to give the "professionals" the "necessary tools"

In his press conference on Iraq yesterday, President George W. Bush emphasised the danger posed by “the enemy”:

These are lethal, cold-blooded killers. And we must do everything we can to protect the American people, including questioning detainees or listening to their phone calls from outside the country to inside the country. In other words, as you know, there was some recent votes on that issue. And the Democrats voted against giving our professionals the tools necessary to protect the American people.

Our professionals, also known as experts, are, as we have seen, those who conduct sessions of the most sensitive questioning, or torture. An interesting addition here is the concept of the tools. Doubtless we are not meant to think of anything so crude as power-drills or electric-shock devices. Perhaps an inclined table for the purposes of forced partial drowning is all that is needed. But there is a further implication of calling authorizations of torture or wiretapping of US citizens the tools: it shunts them out of the realm of moral discourse. Tools are simply functional objects to do one job or another. The question of what tool to use in most situations is not an ethical question but a technological one. Let the carpenter decide between bradawl and screwdriver: who are we to interfere with his craftsman’s nous?

Thus, to consider torture a “tool necessary to protect the American people” reflects a general view, particularly noticeable in Donald Rumsfeld’s command of the Pentagon (his geeky obsession with gadgets and “special forces”), that there are no ethical questions, only technological ones. Were it not an implicit violation of Godwin’s law, I might mention that such an attitude has historically been characteristic of totalitarian government. On this reading, however, Bush’s recent legislation prompts an interesting question. If he is blaming the tools that were already legal for not being sufficient for the job, does that make him a bad workman?

http://unspeak.net/the-tools/

[Fiendish Thingy]

2. KICK!

[kestrel91316]

3. I think I like the idea of simulated drowning for * and friends...........

Note: this is an opinion, and protected speech.

[SlipperySlope]

5. Cheney approves getting terrorists wet.

How's that for watered down?

(Pun intended)

[wellst0nev0ter]

7. And They Get To Define What Torture Is

Whatta country :eyes:

[fooj]

8. That's good to know...

The Hague LOVES this type of info.

[Whoa_Nelly]

9. Waterboarding--The Preferred TORTURE Technique Through The Ages

And it IS torture, you asswipe Cheney! :grr:


During the Dark Ages




During the Salem Witch Hunt era




And in "Modern Times" by the Khymer Rouge

[stepnw1f]

10. Not Only is Torturing Sick and Evil

but they are TORTURING PEOPLE WHO ARE PROBABLY INNOCENT!!!!! There is NO JUDGE nor JURY here!!!! And we already know innocent people have been torured....

This is the underlining point that gets ignored by everyone!

[greeneyedboy]

13. bet it doesn't feel "simulated" to the detainee. time to take our country back

from these evil people (and i don't use the word lightly) who are shredding every principle that has made this country great.

[Mr_Spock]

14. Love the title

Cheney has really stepped in it - he thinks he can cover his tracks by simply stating that he did something illegal and daring anyone to arrest him for it. He's got big balls, I'll give him that.