I’m completely ashamed and frankly on a bit of "outrage overload" lately. The firehose of insanity seems like it is on full blast right in my face lately.
One Attorney General is pretty much responsible for not only legitimizing torture (of course so is our president and former Secretary of Defense) but turning clearly torturous acts that have no business even being discussed (let alone any discussion of torture) into a discussion on just how much torture is ok.
His replacement (after he finally resigned after setting all sorts of records for laws broken by an Attorney General) – a man who presided over a trial of terrorists and knows full well what waterboarding is and that it is most certainly torture no matter which way you look at it. Yet, he still feels the need to punt on this question, talking about needing to know the "facts and circumstances" to determine whether it’s actually illegal.
Here are the facts and circumstances: it is waterboarding, which is illegal.
That’s all.
And now, not surprisingly, the ever up front and responsible Ed Gillespie, a man who would certainly know what is illegal and what is legal, says that, yes...waterboarding is considered by some to be legal.
Considered by some. Well, that is real comforting. Would some of the "some" be Dick Cheney, who did everything he could to avoid serving his country but thinks it is just a "dunk in the water"? Or do "some" include the CIA, who has documents indicating a much lower threshold for torture?
And frankly, does it really matter who thinks this is legal? Those people would be wrong.
Period.
What makes this even worse is that many people, too many people in this country not only know what waterboarding is, but that there is a debate over what techniques are so vile, SO heinous, so disgusting and repugnant that they ALSO be called torture. Not to mention that it doesn’t work anyway, as if that even had any real bearing on the bigger issue here.
We have sunk so low, and you, me, everyone else has been dragged down as well that the United States is in such good company when it comes to the civilized world. The black eye that is on this country for the practices not only carried out by this administration in our name, but also approved by prospective appointees for high level positions with a wink and a nod or the parsing of words and cheerleaders in the corporate controlled media will last for generations.
The fact that this is even discussed as far as what is so bad – so horrific that it should be illegal as opposed to what is so horrific and repugnant but not quite rising to the level of illegal – is a testament to the moral and ethical vacuum that exists. How anyone can even utter the words "moral" and "values" and still bring this monstrosity into public discourse is disgusting.
Of course Mukasey knows that waterboarding is illegal. The mere fact that he is trying to tiptoe around it shows that he is either already perjuring himself before Congress (not a good way to start a career as the Attorney General) and ruining whatever good he has done over his decades-long career or that he is just another lackey to Mister Bush and the thugs that are ruining running this country into the ground.
This clearly disqualifies him from being able to serve. If his nomination gets through or gets approved, then that is a tacit approval for torture by those who allowed him to be confirmed.
And the fact that this is even being discussed in this country in 2007 is an embarrassment and a crime in and of itself.