Amy Goodman: A Vote for Mukasey Is a Vote for Torture

from Truthdig:



A Vote for Mukasey Is a Vote for Torture


Posted on Nov 6, 2007
By Amy Goodman

Judge Michael Mukasey admits waterboarding is repugnant, but refuses to say whether it amounts to torture. Yet Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein voted for his confirmation as U.S. attorney general anyway. Mukasey, Schumer and Feinstein should talk to French journalist Henri Alleg. An editor of a paper in Algeria, he was waterboarded by the French military in 1957, when the French were trying to crush the Algerian independence movement. The 86-year-old journalist spoke to me from his home in Paris:

“I was put on a plank, on a board, fastened to it and taken to a tap . And my face was covered with a rag. Very quickly, the rag was completely full of water. You have the impression of being drowned. And the water ran all over my face. I couldn’t breathe. It’s a terrible, terrible impression of torture and of death, being near death.”

Journalist Stephen Grey, whose documentary “Extraordinary Rendition” airs on PBS stations this week, told me: “I, like many journalists, should issue a correction, an apology really, because we all reported waterboarding as a simulated drowning. It is clear from those who did it, this is actual drowning ... this is something that shocks the conscience and therefore is torture.”

In a remarkable demonstration of commitment to his job, former acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin, according to ABC News, underwent waterboarding when tasked by the White House to rework its official position on torture in 2004. Concluding that waterboarding is torture, he was forced out of his job.

On Monday, Nov. 5, anti-torture activists engaged in an actual demonstration of waterboarding outside the Department of Justice. Twenty-six-year-old actor Maboud Ebrahimzadeh volunteered to be the victim. After the session, he was near tears: “It is the most terrifying experience I have ever had. And although this is a controlled environment, when water goes into your lungs and you want to scream and you cannot, as soon as you do you will choke.”

Four retired military judge advocates general wrote a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy stating, “Waterboarding is inhumane, it is torture, and it is illegal.” Twenty-four former intelligence agents and analysts agreed with the JAGs, adding, “Whether or not the practice is currently in use by U.S. intelligence, it should in fact be easy for him to respond.”

Yet Mukasey told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “I don’t know what’s involved in the technique, if waterboarding is torture.” ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071106_a_vote_for_mukasey_is_a_vote_for_torture