Conservative radio hosts gets waterboarded, and lasts six seconds

[Albert0373]

Chicago radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided he'd get himself waterboarded to prove the technique wasn't torture.

It didn't turn out that way. "Mancow," in fact, lasted just six or seven seconds before crying foul. Apparently, the experience went pretty badly -- "Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop," according to NBC Chicago.

"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South told his audience before he was waterboarded on air. "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/conservative-radio-hosts-waterboarded/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUkj9pjx3H0

Alright Hannity, you're up next.

[captram]

Gezzz they made a really big deal about this few seconds of water board - unbleavebule, anything for the press!

[aiki14]

Anybody expect this candy ass to behave like a SEAL?

[madcowdisease]

A year ago I had the impression that waterboarding was stringing someone up by their feet and actually dunking their head into a tank, or tiliting them back on a table into a tank of water. Obviously this would be considered torture by all but the most sadistic of medieval lords. I then read about it on the net when it become front-and-center during the Presidential campaigns. And after reading that it was pooring water over someone's face to give the feeling of drowning but that there wasn't any physical damage being inflicted I thought, while quite unpleasant, how can this be torture in the traditional sense of beating, burning, or bamboo shoots under the fingernails?

I've since read that it is mostly psychological and can elicit a false confession. With that being said, whether it fits the bill of torture or not, I do not see the practicality of its use. This is America and most of us, excluding the CIA and FBI, hold ourselves to a higher standard than our enemies. Therefore, false confessions do us more harm than good and this practice should not be employed by our government.

[Albert0373]

Hmm, bad taste me to post start this thread this weekend, sorry! It just came up while I was browsing.

I came across something too, what if we had come across one of the Al Queda masterminds on September 10th, 2001? Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

[useless]

Anybody expect this candy ass to behave like a SEAL?

this - Mancow is a moron. Although, I think all these dbag talking heads should go through it once or twice before they should be allowed to talk about it. Of course, after going through it, they probably all would become more obnoxious

[Horace Kent]

Aiki14........as usual dude..........you nailed it!

But, this isn't torture..........according to attorney general Eric Holder....THE INTENT wasn't torture.......so, therefore, it isn't.

[Rep. Dan] Lungren [(R., CA) and the state's former attorney general] then switched gears to a line of questioning aimed at clarifying the Obama Justice Department’s definition of torture. In one of the rare times he gave a straight answer, Holder stated at the hearing that in his view waterboarding is torture. Lundgren asked if it was the Justice Department’s position that Navy SEALS subjected to waterboarding as part of their training were being tortured.

Holder: No, it’s not torture in the legal sense because you’re not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally, all we’re trying to do is train them —

Lungren: So it’s the question of intent?

Holder: Intent is a huge part.

Lungren: So if the intent was to solicit information but not do permanent harm, how is that torture?

Holder: Well, it… uh… it… one has to look at... ah… it comes out to question of fact as one is determining the intention of the person who is administering the waterboarding. When the Communist Chinese did it, when the Japanese did it, when they did it in the Spanish Inquisition we knew then that was not a training exercise they were engaging in. They were doing it in a way that was violative of all of the statutes recognizing what torture is. What we are doing to our own troops to equip them to deal with any illegal act — that is not torture.

[ACM note: I'm not sure whether the Spanish Inquisition had a torture statute — the United States did not have one until 1994, and to this day federal torture law does not mention waterboarding. Nor does the federal war crimes statute. As I've recently noted, Sen. Kennedy posed an amendment in 2006 that would have specified waterboarding as a war crime — something he wouldn't have needed to do if it were already a war crime. The amendment was defeated.]

... Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), a former judge, continued the “intent” line of questioning in an attempt to make some sense of the attorney general’s tortured logic.

Rep. Louie Gohmert: Whether waterboarding is torture you say is an issue of intent. If our officers when waterboarding have no intent and in fact knew absolutely they would do no permanent harm to the person being waterboarded, and the only intent was to get information to save people in this country then they would not have tortured under your definition, isn’t that correct?

Attorney General Eric Holder: No, not at all. Intent is a fact question, it’s a fact specific question.

Gohmert: So what kind of intent were you talking about?

Holder: Well, what is the intention of the person doing the act? Was it logical that the result of doing the act would have been to physically or mentally harm the person?

Gohmert: I said that in my question. The intent was not to physically harm them because they knew there would be no permanent harm — there would be discomfort but there would be no permanent harm — knew that for sure. So, is the intent, are you saying it’s in the mind of the one being water-boarded, whether they felt they had been tortured. Or is the intent in the mind of the actor who knows beyond any question that he is doing no permanent harm, that he is only making them think he’s doing harm.

Holder: The intent is in the person who would be charged with the offense, the actor, as determined by a trier of fact looking at all of the circumstances. That is ultimately how one decides whether or not that person has the requisite intent.

As Holder's Justice Department put it (bold italics are mine):

T]orture is defined as “an extreme form of cruel and inhuman treatment and does not include lesser forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. . . . ” 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(2). Moreover, as has been explained by the Third Circuit, CAT requires “a showing of specific intent before the Court can make a finding that a petitioner will be tortured.” Pierre v. Attorney General, 528 F.3d 180, 189 (3d Cir. 2008) (en banc); see 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(5) (requiring that the act “be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering”); Auguste v. Ridge, 395 F.3d 123, 139 (3d Cir. 2005) (“This is a ‘specific intent’ requirement and not a ‘general intent’ requirement” [citations omitted.] An applicant for CAT protection therefore must establish that “his prospective torturer will have the motive or purpose” to torture him. Pierre, 528 F.3d at 189; Auguste, 395 F.3d at 153-54 (“The mere fact that the Haitian authorities have knowledge that severe pain and suffering may result by placing detainees in these conditions does not support a finding that the Haitian authorities intend to inflict severe pain and suffering. The difference goes to the heart of the distinction between general and specific intent.”) [my bold italics and brackets]. . . .

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjAwY2M0ZjljYjAzYzFiYzljZjNkNDY1YTE1YmVhMDU=