Home
Archive
Columnists
Video
Blogs
Discuss
About
Search
Donate
Advertise
100 words for 100 days: submit your 100 word essay and get published on AlterNet
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
  • AlterNetYour turn

Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.


Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.

Advertisement
Advertisement

Cheney confirms waterboarding of detainees

Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein at 6:17 AM on October 26, 2006.


VP says the use of modern-day dunking stool a "no-brainer."
waterboard1small
Waterboarding

Share and save this post:
Digg iconDelicious iconReddit iconFark iconYahoo! iconNewsvine! iconFacebook iconNewsTrust icon

Got a tip for a post?:
Email us | Anonymous form

Get PEEK in your
mailbox!

 

The TPM Muckraker spots and item that almost slipped through the memory hole: On Tuesday, Vice President Dick Cheney told a conservative radio host that the US waterboards detainees:

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney has confirmed that U.S. interrogators subjected captured senior al-Qaida suspects to a controversial interrogation technique called "water-boarding," which creates a sensation of drowning.

Cheney indicated that the Bush administration doesn't regard water-boarding as torture and allows the CIA to use it. "It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney said at one point in an interview.

Cheney's comments, in a White House interview on Tuesday with a conservative radio talk show host, appeared to reflect the Bush administration's view that the president has the constitutional power to do whatever he deems necessary to fight terrorism.

David Corn explains what waterboarding looks like. The image on the right, taken from Corn's article, is a waterboarding apparatus used by the Khmer Rough to torture prisoners in Cambodia.

Notice the venue and timing of Cheney's revelation. After hedging for months about whether the administration condones waterboarding, the VP drops the bomb on a conservative radio show just before the mid-term elections.

It's a perfect little bit of political theater: Remind the base how tough you are and hope that your opponents aren't paying attention. That's what torture is all about anyway. It's not a real intelligence gathering tool, it's a branding element. That's right folks, we're destroying our constitution for the sake of a marketing campaign.

[TPM Muckraker, David Corn]

Digg!

Tagged as: torture, waterboard, dick cheney, vice president, confirm

Lindsay Beyerstein a New York writer blogging at Majikthise.


Blago: It Just Keeps Getting Stranger
Have you noticed that Blagojevich appears to be stark raving mad?
Post by Steve Benen. January 9, 2009.
Obama: 'If Paul Krugman Has a Good Idea … Then We're Going to Do It'
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has been a frequent critic of President-elect Obama.
Post by Amanda Terkel. January 9, 2009.
Kucinich Speaks Out Against Congress' Blind Support of Israel
"We must take a new direction in the Middle East.
Post by Staff. January 9, 2009.
Advertisement
Comments Turn comments off sitewide Give us feedback »
Comments closed.
The comments for this story have been closed. Thank you to everyone who participated.
View:
Maybe they are witches!
Posted by: albrechtkrausse on Oct 26, 2006 6:42 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Has anyone give a thought that, quite possibly, former AG Ashcroft (a believer in speaking in tongues, handling snakes, and covering-up nude statues) might have implemented the "water-boarding" policy in an attempt to discover where the witches are? After all it would fit into his 'religion'.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

How does Mr. Cheney know?
Posted by: Democritus on Oct 26, 2006 7:38 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It is interesting to note that Dick Cheney doesn't think that "waterboarding" is torture. But then he's never been "waterboarded." He apparently thinks that 2,800 dead American servicemen and women in Iraq was worth what we have achieved there. But then he's never served in the military and took pains to see that he didn't serve. Maybe he also thinks that getting shot in the face isn't that painful, but maybe that's because he was the one doing the shooting. Maybe when he says it's a "no brainer" for the CIA to use their coercive methods he's talking about himself again.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

poe
Posted by: janiepoe on Oct 26, 2006 7:46 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
SICK!SICK!SICK! THIS GROUP IN OUR WHITE HOUSE ARE SICK! I BET THEY TORTURED SMALL ANIMALS WHEN THEY WERE CHILDREN AND GOT THRU THE SYSTEM BY DADDYS MONEY! ITS UNBELIEVABLE!!!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Your childish ignorance is limitless
Posted by: citizenjoe on Oct 26, 2006 7:50 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Torture is not done for marketing - to establish a brand. The purpose of torture is as old as the ages-- to show unlimited authority and what will happen to those who do not accept it. Torture is used by the state or the church to assert supreme authority in all matters. You trivialize Cheney and this administration. They are extreme supremacist authoritarians. You think they are going to allow elections to deprive them of power? You have seen them steal elections before and you will see it again -- maybe even worse. Think about it!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

RabidWestCoaster
Posted by: LeftCoastProgressive on Oct 26, 2006 8:35 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Cheney is the most depraved of this "ruling" cabal. That's why he might like and aid impeachment of Bush. He could "rule" unimpaired. Clearly, he is subhuman and bestial. He's feeling so powerful that saying whatever he wants will not harm him. Most of us out here feel powerless to change this except by extreme violence. Lets bring back the guillotine and the good old days of the Fench Revolution. Of course, it wouldn't be much fun for the masses witnessing the beheading of this asshole. So lets devise a super "waterboarding" instrument for him. If he holds his breath for 5 minutes in a vat of his own excrement, he's free to go.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

not all that surprising
Posted by: revolutionary80 on Oct 26, 2006 9:46 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Cheney is scum!! plain and simple. I am not surprised he came out and revealed this it's not like someone will hold him accountable. In the whole "war on terror" we have came out looking like the evil ones, not the terrorists.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

waterboarding
Posted by: gordie on Oct 26, 2006 9:47 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Please, give us the full source for Cheney's comment. A "conservative talk show host" isn't enough for us to us.
Which conservative talk show host and when. Thanks.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: waterboarding Posted by: CanuckKid
WHY DRESS UP TORTURE ?
Posted by: Abushite on Oct 26, 2006 2:29 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It never ceases to amaze that we Americans cannot face up to the real image or description of something evil that they are part of , eg "water boarding". Why call it boarding ? Is it because if it is described as torture then people would be repulsed or even angry ? Try this "Water Boarding" sometime , fill up your bath tub (or better still your hot tub) place your spouse in the tub, then with friends and your family doctor, submerse spouse - holding down until struggles almost cease, bring them up for air- if they have inhaled some water allow some time for coughing to stop before resubmersion. This 'process' of "boarding" should could be continued despite the spouse defecating themselves in terror. If at some stage, spouse stops breathing - get the doctor to assist in recovery.
Torture is Torture ! Boarding is Torture ! What is wrong with calling a spade a spade ? Are Americans ashamed of what they hide ?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Remember this...
Posted by: lessbread on Oct 26, 2006 6:28 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We sentenced Japanese for Waterboarding

[snippet]
Interestingly, we weren't nearly as blithe about waterboarding when it happened to our own guys during World War II. Then, we considered it a war crime and a form of torture.

In "Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts," Judge Evan Wallach of the U.S. Court of International Trade has documented the trials in which the United States used evidence of water-boarding as a basis for prosecutions. The article, still in draft form, will be published soon by the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.

Among the numerous examples, Wallach cites one involving four Japanese defendants who were tried before a U.S. military commission at Yokohama, Japan, in 1947 for their treatment of American and Allied prisoners. Wallach writes, in the case of United States of America vs. Hideji Nakamura, Yukio Asano, Seitara Hata and Takeo Kita, "water torture was among the acts alleged in the specifications ... and it loomed large in the evidence presented against them."

Hata, the camp doctor, was charged with war crimes stemming from the brutal mistreatment and torture of Morris Killough "by beating and kicking him (and) by fastening him on a stretcher and pouring water up his nostrils." Other American prisoners, including Thomas Armitage, received similar treatment, according to the allegations.

Armitage described his ordeal: "They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about 2 gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness."

Hata was sentenced to 25 years at hard labor, and the other defendants were convicted and given long stints at hard labor as well.
[/snippet]

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]