Eric Holder: 'Waterboarding is torture'
In a statement certain to send Bill O'Reilly round yet another bend, Attorney General nominee Eric Holder made plain he considered waterboarding to be torture:
Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder Jr. forcefully broke from the Bush administration's counterterrorism policies Thursday, declaring that waterboarding is torture and pledging to prosecute some Guantanamo Bay detainees in U.S. courts.
It was the latest signal that President-elect Barack Obama will chart a new course in combating terrorism. As recently as last week, Vice President Dick Cheney defended waterboarding, a harsh interrogation tactic that simulates drowning, saying it provided valuable intelligence.
... It was the first topic discussed at Holder's confirmation hearing, and he made an unambiguous statement about its nature: "Waterboarding is torture."
As the pundits on MSNBC quickly observed, this not only means the Obama administration will explicitly abjure the use of torture as an intelligence tool, there is at least some likelihood that the people who approved torture -- and then conducted it -- within the Bush administration may someday face the consequences for having done so.
Of course, as Digby explored in some detail the other day (read it all), this sets all kinds of hearts a-fluttering and pearls a-twirling. As indeed it should.
in a time of war it is a war crime.
Let the war crimes tribunals begin.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
that some conservatives are floating the idea that we are not at war. Do you think there may be a connection?
Congress never declared war.
and there is no winning an occupation. But there was insistence that there is an Iraq war just as there is "war on terror" which whipped up the American is badder than anyone else hysteria. Bunch of crap!
Other, more sane observers agree!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28668002/
I doubt Obama or his AG holds anyone of particular importance responsible for the various crimes against humanity that have occurred under W. I like Obama and voted for him - but he ran as a centrist (no one here could have believed the Right's socialist rhetoric) and he has issues to juggle - he won't "waste" time and effort on something as divisive as any any attempts to prosecute those who approved torutre etc. would be. I don't like Holder at all. It would be something however to watch Holder, who defended Chiquita's involvement with right wing death squads, attempt to prosecute others for their policies of terror.
Whether at war or not, we broke the Geneva Conventions. We should be tried for War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. If we can't get up the nerve to do it then there are other countries that can and will. Don't forget Rumsfeld can't go to Europe for fear of being arrested for War Crimes.
This admin is going down, and we are going to look like the German people who enabled Hitler.
is (effectively, if not overtly) that might makes right. There will be no trip to the Hague for anyone in the Bush administration, since the US has not been invaded by an army with sufficient force to march US politicians to the court.
There may be some prospect of domestic trials especially if it can be done by individuals or other organizations not directly tied to the incoming administration.
more moral relativism.
The future, full of points of our continued decline will hold Pinochet moments.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
We are the German people period.
plays on words and many faux positions of moral relativism by the guilty and their enablers in an attempt to avoid prosecution.
It will not matter in my book.
It matters not the technicalities of a state of war, a declaration of war or a mere impression of war.
Our armies invaded and have continued to occupy two sovereign nations, neither of which attacked us, that is war, however you might try to finesse it.
In fact, because neither of them attacked us, we committed aggressive war, which is the primary war crime from which all others flow.
Here are the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal, 1950, which we authored.
These were adopted by the International Law Commission of the United Nations, 1950.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Regardless of whether the US formally declared War in accordance with its own laws, we certainly have conducted two wars and two occupations (one more by proxy than the other).
In an ideal world, certain US politicians would be prosecuted by the Hague for war crimes. However, wishing will not make it so.
Let's focus on what's possible, instead of being distracted by calls for the impossible.
there will be faux positions of the moral relativists.
Congratulations.
A foreign prosecutor, who will have jurisdiction, may well, at some point to come, take the moral reigns that we as a society have abdicated.
There are many years to come for Pinochet moments.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Thank you...but you misunderstand.
I agree that many of the Bush administration's polices are/were immoral.
The question we are debating is whether anything in particular will come of those immoral acts and omissions. Do you honestly have any expectation that anyone from the outgoing administration will be sent to the Hague? If so, please explain your reasoning. If not, then you're wasting your time calling for something you know will not happen.
The US is in enough trouble that focusing on positive changes that have a real chance of occurring is a moral necessity.
the past is an adolescent delusion. Situation ethics, moral relativism, "the ends justify the means" and all other self-loathing tactics have never and will never work. Primates have the unique capability to employ memory, collective or personal, to aid them in decision-making. To ignore what one knows is to cut yourself free from being human and that sure ain't gonna work.
"Secular humanism -- a fearless, realistic world view replete with doubt and scepticism that attempts to attain an unachievable state of equilibrium between and among the human qualities of reason, intuition, imagination, memory, ethics and common sense.
Sec_Humanist - I am not ignoring the past. Spending time advocating for something that will never happen (like marching Bush and Cheney to the Hague) is a waste of time. I'll repeat. I agree that Bush and co. have acted immorally. Now what? What do you think will happen next? What can actually be done to respond to those immoral actions (other than caterwauling about them on the internet)? I've suggested federal prosecutions by private citizens or groups. What's your suggestion?
Alice - I disagree with your definition of moral relativism. In this thread, I am not making an argument about the morality of Bush's actions, just about what can actually be done in response to Bush's actions. The fact that he will never appear in the Hague does not somehow make his actions moral.
You THINK that is what WE are debating.
What I am debating is that there MUST BE prosecutions, beginning with the very top and going down.
I WILL NEVER withdraw that assertion.
You can write from now until the earth falls into the sun and it will not change my position.
That is moral relativism per se.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Moral relativism would be if I were arguing that Bush's actions were moral in some (cultural or social or other) way. I'm not. I'm just saying that he's going to get away with a lot of it (and possibly all of it) and that taking extreme positions (like trying him in the Hague) just makes it harder to affix him with any accountability.
Actually I agree with you. To paraphrase William Godwin's definition of virtue: a moral act requires a moral objective and a moral outcome. In otherwords it's active on the person taking the action. It can be spread to those who would say in extraordinary times, extraordinary means must be taken. So it's funny that so many "Christians" who back boosh and fault America for its Moral relativism, actually seem to be more prone to the fault themselves.
American Christians tend to practice a tautology: torture is evil, so we don't torture, because we're not evil.
Focussing on certain issues where one can make a difference can be cited as the classical definition of rationalism. However, it does tend to run counter to the Kantian Imperative. But I never really cared for Kant; he was essentially a Christian apologist disguising his religious proclivities in the language of Enlightened philosophy.
However, in the first few days of the new administration is probably the only times we can have our voices heard. After that it'll be the economic shambles, unless Gaza, Afghanistan, Iraq or Iran distract us.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
to Jonathan Turley and not try my hand at long dead philosophers.
Here he sets the principles out most clearly. Watch the entire interview.
If Bush et al had robbed a bank, in fact they did but that is another prosecution, Obama could say we don't rob banks, there is a bank robber and he is under arrest. Well he should but that is another problem.
Obama has said that we don't torture, many voices, including Bush and Cheney themselves have come forward and admitted it. Cheney has even bragged about it.
Eric Holder now says that waterboarding is torture, we knew that already but he is the AG designee and that is an important thing for him to say.
Mukassey would not say it, he clearly knew the implications, in declining to do so he became a consiglieri.
All of the pieces are falling into to place. Will we undertake prosecutions?
I won't enter into that speculation.
To go back and paraphrase the bank robber analogy.
We don't torture, there is a torturer, he is under arrest.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Man you going to make alberto gonzoles look like a biatch Where there is crime prosecute and get Harriet Myers and gang for ignoring the congressional supeona.
HOLDER: If you look at the history of the use of that technique, used by the Khmer Rouge, used in the Inquisition, used by the Japanese and prosecuted by us as war crimes. We prosecuted our own soldiers for using it in Vietnam. I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, waterboarding is torture.
----------
I want to add also that over 100 years ago in the Philippine War we prosecuted some of our own soldiers for waterboarding prisoners. Waterboarding has been illegal in the US for a long time.
There needs to be a law to prevent lying from our elected reps.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
A bunch of reputations(O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc.) just got flushed down the toilet.
I flushed them a long time ago.
smarter and have more integrity than them.
Add Joe Scarborough to that list
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
...it appeared to me that some of the commentors were making jokes about torture. Maybe I didn't get it?
I didn't get about 75% of the comments on the last thread and I didn't watch the videos either.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
floating up and down the halls of justice.
Now... connect these dots, and prosecute!
The whole argument for torture/waterboarding would end with one simple question...
Would you do it to your own children?
to see who got into the cookie jar?
Holder's statement couldn't have come on a better day. It's our gift to bush just before he makes his final speech tonight. Just a little reminder from the sane section of the country that we know he was responsible for pure and simple torture of human beings.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
I expect charges to be filed soon, since Holder is going to be the "chief" prosecuting attorney.
I hope he doesnt forget that along with torture, the previous administration also may be guilty of,
pre-emptive undeclared war on Iraq and Afghanistan.
wiretapping phones,
operating a prison called Abu Graib,
criminal neglect in the aftermath of Katrina,
neglect and complicity in the events of 9/11,
illegal firings of U.S. attorneys,
passing unconstitutional laws,
and bankrupting the country.
and other shit too.
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
It'll be interesting to see how the votes go regarding his confirmation. Is this declaration of torture going to scare a bunch of republicans and maybe some democrats too?
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
Will holder be the man to "finally" do something?
..nobody seemed to "rally" behind Kuchinich when he introduced his impeachment stuff...and I think torture was (one) of the manyimpeachment resolutions he presented.
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
here.
Perhaps at some point a foreign prosecutor may take the moral reigns, we, as a society, seem to have abdicated.
They will have jurisdiction on war crimes.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
That's how our ideological spectrum is now defined.
Has been, for quite some time, exshully...Y'all are jis gittin 'roun' t' noticin'...been dang obvious fer quaht a spell...
About Obama holding anyone accountable.
As I keep saying to my friends, Obama is a poker player. And a poker player never shows his hand.
While the talking heads and many posters here even have been going crazy about all this bipartisanship he’s expressing and the lack of fist pounding speeches declaring accountability accountability accountability …
I just remember …
Each time he’s been questioned about what he’s doing or his timing or whatever … he comes out at the exact right time with the exact right statement with the exact right measure.
I mean, how many times does that have to happen to just wait and see?
I’m waiting and seeing.
Why would he give Bush a good reason to pardon anyone? Why?
If he does take power and nothing happens … then … THEN I’m going to be pissed because our dreams did not come true and these fukks are not held accountable and the rule of law and the constitution mean nothing.
Until then though …
The only way the chimpster could have been absolutely guaranteed that he wouldn't be prosecuted is if McCain had won. So following that, wouldn't it make sense to preemptively pardon yourself? Now why wouldn't he do that? Could it possibly be that he has been reassured by the worthless dems they won't do squat?
to harass, brutalize, abduct, and murder union organizers in Colombia, Eric?
Just good bidness tactics...Right?
that there is NO ONE in Washington DC except for perhaps the homeless, who have no skeletons in their closet.
If a big rock fell out of the sky and flattened it all, I would shed a tear…
for the homeless.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
So the people earning minimum wage waiting tables in DC deserve to be wiped out too - just because they may be able to afford a shared roof over their heads?
If I could identify the innocents and was the only one who saw the rock, I would get them out myself.
Or perish trying.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
That's not what you wrote.
You said
That isn't what I wrote. That statement does not follow logically from what I wrote. I just didn't include them as ones I would weep for. Now that you bring it up I will think about it.
But I stand by my second statement:
There are 'ifs' in both statements.
You seem to have problems observing that fact.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
in Washington DC is innocent except "perhaps the homeless", you then clearly implied that the homeless were the only people you would shed a tear for if DC were to be destroyed by a meteorite.
When I called you on how extreme your rhetoric was, you resorted to personal insults. The "if" in your first statement does not affect how exaggerated was your claim about the culpability of DC residents nor your indifference to their prospective deaths.
You continue to make things up out of thin air. Stop it.
You wrote:
Use my exact words, don't make them up, don't use substitutes, they mean different things.
I wrote:
Yes, so what?
Yes, so what?
It was a rhetorical statement to begin with.
But if a big rock did fall from the sky and were big enough to wipe out a major city:
1 - I made no statement whatsoever that ANYONE at all perishes, either by my desire or my expectation. YOU assumed that. You continue as if that is what I wrote.
2 - It would not be a meteorite, it would be an asteroid. They would see it coming from a long ways out and everyone would get away. Except for maybe the homeless.
You continue to make things up out of thin air. Stop it.
I will continue to say that Washington is so corrupt that if vanished from the face of the earth we'd be better off. The inhabitants should go somewhere else and do something positive for humanity.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
What form of rhetoric are you presenting here? Is it ethos, logos, pathos?
Actually it comes closer to the fallacy of false dilemma since it depends on a speculative disaster.
And your equation was overly-simplistic to be an effective rhetorical argument, making Washington DC primarily only politicians and the homeless, at least as far as your sympathy goes. You certainly over-generalized how many people have skeletons in their closet, which is speculative at best. That's all that was pointed out in that regard. You're trying to claim a non-sequitur on that opposing point is actually to commit an Argumentum ad Reductio. Notwithstanding your use of the word "if" regarding a giant rock, if you look up the word if, it has several definitions on how it's used. Basically your use of the word if is the verbal equivalent of making a statement and crossing your fingers behind your back.
One could even compare it to statements prefaced by, "Some people say..."
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I presume!
Washington DC started as a swamp when they cleared it to place the capital there.
It has ended as a swamp, of moral decay. There was never a reason for the city other than as the political capitol.
The entire sub thread started when woody said this:
We could have added what Holder should have said about the Marc Rich pardon. The real truth.
As I was saying, DC is a moral swamp that would have brought loathing to Nicolo Machiavelli.
I will stick with what I have said, and I will not worry about your arguments.
The thread is about TORTURE which is a war crime. We seem to have a culture in Washington DC that thinks that is OK.
We are disgraced.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
After he's done prosecuting the chimp team [tee hee].
Only traitors torture
WILL.
BE.
PISSED.
For those who look to qualification for a job we now have one. Holder will have alot of working ahead of him. He will cover go over every case from 2000 til 2009 Jan. 20th. If anyone is a lawyer or paralegal you can get a job as Holder will need you. Other US departments will need honest people also. Holder's opinion leads to the International Court charging the Bush Administration with War Crimes.
Great! So how long after the inauguration until the Justice Department begins its investigation into possible war crimes?
Why did this make headlines? W's Attorney General Mukasey stated dozens of times during his confirmation hearing that waterboarding violated both the law and the Constitution. Here's the transcript: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdo...
So this does not, in fact, represent a break from the current Administration.
Further, Holder's answer was by no means unequivocal. One should be disturbed by the meaning of the qualifying phrase he used, starting with "if." His full answer was: "If you look at the history of the use of that technique, used by the Khmer Rouge, used in the Inquisition, used by the Japanese and prosecuted by us as war crimes--we prosecuted our own soldiers for using it in Vietnam--I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, waterboarding is torture." Does this mean that if it is the technique used by these bad actors, or if it was the thing that we ourselves have prosecuted, then it is torture, but there may be circumstances where, depending on how waterboarding is defined, it may not be torture? This is troubling because it is absolutely certain that Holder carefully prepared his answer for this question.
So: no, he didn't equivocally state it was torture. And, no, he did not break with Mukasey or the current administration.
Sticklers will recall that Mukasey was clear on the point that it is torture, but was unwilling to make a legal opinion without definitions or facts--and any trained lawyer knows doing so would have been imprudent, and the grandstanding senators that engaged in the wordplay during his confirmation hearing well know it.
Wow Huge...
He's making the statement that waterboarding is illegal and is giving the green light to this country and others to begin proceedings against those who used it.
Will Bush pardon? It doesn't matter to other countries what he does. And I really don't think he will. If he does he will be making the statement that it was a crime he had to pardon. And..
He don't think he care. It doesn't affect him personally.
I don't really think he'll pardon Libby either. The guy's a shmuck. He got used and abused.
Jeanne
Holder did not say waterboarding was illegal. He said nothing that Mukasey didn't say. Mukasey also said waterboarding was torture. Leahy, Schumer, Feinstein, Durbin--none of them asked the question they were trying to get out of Mukasey. This is NO change from the Bush Administration
Mukasey specifically did not say that waterboarding is torture.
Holder says it is.
It has been defined as torture for centuries.
Holder does not need to say that torture is illegal, it is IN statute as being illegal. It is a felony.
If someone dies it is a capital felony.
It is also a war crime which is international law to which we subscribe via treaty.
That is why Mukasey would not say that it is torture. If he did he would need to enforce the law.
I can only suppose.
The question no one asked Holder was:
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
Is he going to enforce the law?
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
All this moral clarity at once is making my head spin. I don't think there's been anything that's pointed out the corruption and ethical abyss of BushCo better than the straight forward responses of Obama's nominees. Hopefully, it'll last beyond the nomination process.
In response to questions by Senator Durbin, Mukasey said "It is not constitutional for the United States to engage in torture of any form, be it waterboarding or anything else." p. 186. Lemming to the spin.
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