When Rudy goes waterboarding

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/10/26/giuliani_and_torture/print.html



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When Rudy goes waterboarding
The former mayor says "liberal newspapers" have exaggerated the technique's brutality. Perhaps he should try it himself.

By Joe Conason

Oct. 26, 2007 | Echoing Michael Mukasey, his friend and associate who likely will soon be the next attorney general, Republican presidential front-runner Rudolph Giuliani claimed Wednesday that he doesn't know whether waterboarding is torture. Having become accustomed long ago to making the most absurd declarations without fear of challenge, Giuliani went further than Mukasey's hesitant demurral.

"I don't know what is involved in the technique," Mukasey replied during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, when Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a former prosecutor, asked whether Mukasey thinks waterboarding constitutes torture and is therefore illegal as well as unconstitutional. Perhaps Mukasey (and Giuliani) should be subjected to the technique for strictly educational purposes so that they will become aware that it involves reclining the victim on a bench or table, covering his face with a cloth and then pouring water over his nose and mouth to make him feel as if he is drowning.

People who have suffered this kind of treatment -- at the hands of Japanese military intelligence officers, for instance -- have described it as horrific. Experts have determined that it can result in permanent physical and psychological damage and can even result in death.

But that very unpleasant experience may or may not be a form of torture, according to the former New York mayor. "I'm not sure it is, either," said Giuliani when asked about Mukasey's dodge at a forum in Iowa. "It depends on how it's done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it."

Such lazy-minded clichés -- ............

Chalk it up to science and justice.

Would set up a water boarding demo on his farm when one of these Repubs presidential candidates come to visit. Then offer to let Rudy or who ever comes to test it for themselves to see if they feel tortured.