Mukasey approved for Attorney General

[WRESTLINGFAN]

Looks like the Dems folded again. They were grilling him about waterboarding being torture when he was in committeee

On a lighter note, if waterboarding is torture will baptisms be banned?


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071110/wl_afp/uscongressjusticepolitics_071110023941

[TooLowBrow]

i know nothing about this guy? is he good, bad, evil, or weak?

[WRESTLINGFAN]

i know nothing about this guy? is he good, bad, evil, or weak?

I guess they confirmed him because hes anyone but Alberto Gonzales. Mukasey was a former federal judge who presided over some of the '93 WTC Terrorists

[TooLowBrow]

I guess they confirmed him because hes anyone but Alberto Gonzales. Mukasey was a former federal judge who presided over some of the '93 WTC Terrorists

did he lock them up?

[Ritalin]

I am officially independent. Chuck Shumer is a little Yorkshire Terrier.

How embarrasing.

[Yerdaddy]

On a lighter note, if waterboarding is torture will baptisms be banned?



Yes. John McCain calls it torture and he's been tortured plenty. Here's a guy who was waterboarded and has waterboarded other soldiers as "a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School" and he says it's torture. (http://www.montanawomenfor.org/2007/11/10/is-waterboarding-torture/) You should volunteer to have yourself waterboarded and see if you still compare it to baptism.

If the legal definition of waterboarding is the only issue they had with Mukasey as Attorney General then they should have nominated. It's not like Bush couldn't, (and hasn't), put worse people in that position. I'd say this is one more example of the Democrats being infinitely more moderate politicians than Republicans as a whole. Good for them.

[A.J.]

On a lighter note, if waterboarding is torture will baptisms be banned?

You should volunteer to have yourself waterboarded and see if you still compare it to baptism.

"Baptism is a rite of religious indoctrination and that's a kind of torture."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c4/LionelHutz.jpg/250px-LionelHutz.jpg

[high fly]

Yes. John McCain calls it torture and he's been tortured plenty. Here's a guy who was waterboarded and has waterboarded other soldiers as "a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School" and he says it's torture. (http://www.montanawomenfor.org/2007/11/10/is-waterboarding-torture/) You should volunteer to have yourself waterboarded and see if you still compare it to baptism.

If the legal definition of waterboarding is the only issue they had with Mukasey as Attorney General then they should have nominated. It's not like Bush couldn't, (and hasn't), put worse people in that position. I'd say this is one more example of the Democrats being infinitely more moderate politicians than Republicans as a whole. Good for them.


Of course it is torture.
I have to disagree with you, Yerdaddy, because I think it is big enough to be a disqualifier.

One of the ugly truths the Bush administration wll not escape is history will show them to be the ones who made torture of prisoners a matter of normal governmental policy, which stands against all that our nation has stood for since her founding.

Torture does not work, it produces information that is so tainted as to be virtually unuseable.
Right now I'll tell anyone wanting to debate the issue that I have the words of at least a dozen professional military interrogators to back me up as well as a number of other first-quality sources from Sun Tzu to George Washington to David Hackworth to David Petraeus damning the abuse of prisoners.

The information that professional interrogators get from prisoners that is actionable is given willingly, and there are many tricks and ruses pros use that have been proven to work.
A good book on the topic is THE INTERROGATORS Task Force 500 and America's Secret War Against al Qaeda, by Chris Mackey and Greg Miller (Back Bay Books, 2004).
Mackey commanded a rserve unit of professional interrogators in Afghanistan and in an appendix gives the 16 approved tactical approaches taught at Fort Huachuca that have been proven to work.


With Mukasey, we can be sure our government will be torturing prisoners, getting crappy information while giving terrorists a powerful recruiting tool as well as hampering intelligence cooperation from our allies and heaping dishonor on our nation that time will not erase.

[Yerdaddy]

Of course it is torture.
I have to disagree with you, Yerdaddy, because I think it is big enough to be a disqualifier.

One of the ugly truths the Bush administration wll not escape is history will show them to be the ones who made torture of prisoners a matter of normal governmental policy, which stands against all that our nation has stood for since her founding.

Torture does not work, it produces information that is so tainted as to be virtually unuseable.
Right now I'll tell anyone wanting to debate the issue that I have the words of at least a dozen professional military interrogators to back me up as well as a number of other first-quality sources from Sun Tzu to George Washington to David Hackworth to David Petraeus damning the abuse of prisoners.

The information that professional interrogators get from prisoners that is actionable is given willingly, and there are many tricks and ruses pros use that have been proven to work.
A good book on the topic is THE INTERROGATORS Task Force 500 and America's Secret War Against al Qaeda, by Chris Mackey and Greg Miller (Back Bay Books, 2004).
Mackey commanded a rserve unit of professional interrogators in Afghanistan and in an appendix gives the 16 approved tactical approaches taught at Fort Huachuca that have been proven to work.


With Mukasey, we can be sure our government will be torturing prisoners, getting crappy information while giving terrorists a powerful recruiting tool as well as hampering intelligence cooperation from our allies and heaping dishonor on our nation that time will not erase.

Would you tell Jack Bauer not to get too rough with a terrorist just 14 commercial breaks before a dirty bomb goes off in the middle of LA??? Because as long as it still works for Jack Bauer you're not going to convince enough Americans it's a bad and stupid thing to do - and it's not going to be a dealbreaker for an Attorney General. I've also not heard any more than three people have actually been waterboarded. It's been long enough that people who know and who usually disclose these things to their contacts in the press have only turned up three incidences. I haven't heard anything about it being more widespread. I think there's enough professionals involved in our interrogation - now - that it's not going to be common practice, for the reasons you listed. I think we're still running the risk of soldiers and private military prison guards taking it upon themselves to mistreat and torture prisoners because it's been essentially condoned by the administration. But I know most professionals in the military and intelligence agencies know just how bad Abu Ghraib hurt the war effort and will enact measures to professionalize those forces.

Don't get me wrong - we torture people and it's does us more harm than good. And the fact that everybody knows we do it disgraces the country in so many ways - not least of which is the fact that it makes our soldiers more likely to be tortured if captured, not to mention freelance hack journalists working in third world authoritarian regimes. But I don't think we can expect to get a nominee that takes the opposition (Democrats and principled Republicans like McCain and Warner) line on the legality of waterboarding - in part because it's not apparently widespread. Face it - Mukasey is a lot better candidate for AG than John Bolton was for UN ambassador. Same goes for Robert Gates and Petraus. The administration is weak and the guys they can get through the Senate are not the extremists that ran the federal government for most of the last six years. I think Mukasey is not a partisan hack like Gonzoles and just might be capable of depoliticizing the DOJ - actually appointing independents to investigate the Gonzolez team and cooperating with Congress. But Bush could also just say "fuck it" and nominate Ken Starr. I'm cool with this.