After years of fears and many tears…

posted by Bill Arnett @ 12:37 PM Permalink

…our government MAY be reentering the 21st century. Today's headline omes from the NYT:

Waterboarding Not Legal Now, Justice Dept. Lawyer Says

But, of course there is the usual hedging, parsing, and covering of posteriors.

Steven G. Bradbury, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, seemed set to shake up one of the fiercest debates in Washington today by offering a clear and concise statement about the controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

‘’There has been no determination by the Justice Department that the use of waterboarding, under any circumstances, would be lawful under current law,'’ he says in prepared remarks for a House hearing today that were obtained in advance by The Associated Press.

The administration’s current interrogation rules are “narrower than before” waterboarding was used five years ago by the C.I.A., he said.[…]

Last night, the Senate voted, 51 to 45, to ban waterboarding and prohibit the use of physical force during interrogations.

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, one of the leading Democratic voices against waterboarding, declared that “change is in the air.” But President Bush has vowed to veto the measure, while reserving a right to authorize use of the tactic in the future.

Torture is torture is torture, any way you slice and dice it, it should be illegal now and at any time in the future, mostly because anyone will say anything when put in terrible pain.

Remember Kalid Sheikh Mohammad's coerced confession that he personally killed Daniel Pearl (when it is certain he did not), planned the WTC terror attack, planned the USS Cole bombing, the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby[ OK, maybe not this one], and that Zacarias Massaoui had nothing to do with the WTC attack. He did, I think, confess to every major terror attack that has taken placed for the last fifty or sixty years.

How can this man be tried for crimes confessed to under torture? If bush vetoes this as promised he should be tried as a war criminal the instant he is voted out of office.

Labels: conspiracy, Courts, Crime, Justice Department, Terrorism, Torture