Tag: sleep deprivation

Aug 25 2009

Morning Joe Defends Bush/Torture. The GOP is scared, and for good reason

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    Memo: Attach Bush to torture = make them defend both.

    Though Morning Joe doesn’t say Bush’s name, I think we should, and Democrats will use this to pursue justice and Destroy the GOP. I consider it a great instance of killing two birds with one stone.



    Republicans will say this will damage the President’s popularity in polls, they will justify and lie and say anything to avoid owning this issue, but the fact is that the law was broken, and I believe this is the beginning of a well timed plan to get the ball rolling now, and then use it against the GOP for maximum effect.

More below the fold, and a call to action . . .  

May 31 2009

Prosecuting: Moving Beyond the Mancow Redux.

We watched Christopher Hitchens and Erich “Mancow” Muller spend a few seconds on a waterboard and emerge convinced that waterboarding is torture. While I welcome their conversions, their stunts really did not teach us anything new. Though the initial panic of having water come at them was suffering enough, they both quit before the real effects of waterboarding kicked in: they have no idea what would come if the torture did not stop when they cried “uncle.”

Torture is the systematic use of trauma to provoke a change in consciousness: the only goal of torture is to drive a person to unbearable madness. The purpose of the torture — interrogation, extortion — immaterial. Mancow and Hitchens spent a short time on the waterboard and saw that rabbithole in the distance. They bailed before any of the real terror kicked in…

But what if ending the torture at will was not an option? What if they would have undergone waterboarding as Bybee prescribed?