AP Photo/Susan Walsh
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has had a rough couple of weeks, with all this "what did she know and when did she know it?" stuff; a familiar song with some of the lyrics changed.
We Republicans are trying to place the onus on Mrs. Pelosi, while the subject of what constitutes torture is mostly ignored. Does waterboarding constitute torture? If yes, then what Pelosi knew and when is an important question. If not, that question is moot.
Had these fine upstanding fellows at Guantanamo Bay grown up in the public school system in the West, they might feel a bit differently about it.
Dodgeball, where a dense, high-velocity ball is whipped at your face by the opposing team. Bones get broken, noses bleed, all in the name of physical fitness. Waterboarding is less than that.
The kids in the Science Club routinely having their heads shoved in everything from rubbish bins to filthy toilets by the jocks. This is worse than (or on a par with) waterboarding, yet charges of torture are never laid. The UN is never called. Amnesty International doesn't care.
The humiliation of having your lock glued shut or your clothes stolen while you're in gym class (or being "pantsed") - worse than most of the "cheerleader pyramid" photos out of Abu Ghraib that we spent many long months wringing our collective hands over.
Or perhaps had these "terrorists" or "insurgents" or "freedom fighters" or "fluffy bunny unicorns" or whatever we've decided is the appropriate moniker this week grown up female in the West, they would know that:
- Bikini wax - worse than waterboarding
- Cosmetic surgery - worse than waterboarding, as Mrs. Pelosi can surely attest
- Training for a marathon - worse than waterboarding
- Pregnancy/childbirth - way worse than waterboarding
In fact, many things you and I do every day have worse physical and emotional repercussions than waterboarding and other forms of "enhanced interrogation".
Our own military members going through war-zone traning are put through considerably worse "torture" techniques to prepare them for possible capture by the enemy. Waterboarding would seem a treat to these brave men, considering our enemy can barely read, let alone study the Geneva Conventions. SERE - Search, Evasion, Resistance and Escape - training involves waterboarding and much more done to our soldiers that we wouldn't put our enemies through. Beatings. Shocks. Sexual assault resistance. Remembering that ours is a volunteer military makes the fact that they go through all this mean all the more.
We must keep in perspective that our enemies do not have the level of civilization that we do. When they capture one of our sons (or worse yet, daughters), they do not have a medical team standing by to revive them if something goes wrong. Just because Christopher Hitchens, an ivy-league toff, wasn't able to withstand more than four seconds of waterboarding does not necessarily make it torture.
Furthermore, our enemy does not provide facilities in which prisoners gain an average of 15lbs during their stay.
The House GOP wants a vote on Pelosi, on whether or not she should be investigated for her apparent mistruths over the past few weeks. This is unnecessary, if we first debate what constitutes torture.
Oh, as an aside, four Muslims were arrested last night in New York City for planning acts of terror. Missiles to shoot down planes, bombing two synagogues in the Bronx, that sort of thing. At least one of the men was not born Muslim - he converted inside our own prison system.Just thought I'd mention it.
Comments
Watching Nancy Pelosi get a bikini wax, now THAT's "torture".
If you think things are bad for you. Just imagine that there is a Mr. Pelosi somewhere.
I don't know about the ones you mentioned Wendy but in my own experience back spasms are a severe form of torture. But I don't know if you can induce them. I'm sure Dick Cheney knows how.
bravo and truth spoken well. this is a debate worth having that is *not* over as some would wish, simply to further their policies and agenda. truth, facts, and accuracy matter.
TORTURE is opening this page to see that witches face on it!!!!
Blustone, Mr Pelosi is making a fortune because of his wife!
This is hilarious; I love every minute seeing this amoral person squirm!!! Hope she stays on as the comedy team of Biden and Pelosi will be much better materiel than Bush and Cheney!!
Sorry guys, the CIA isn't well known for telling the truth.
There is no evidence that they told her this information, only a back and forth. Of course I expect you guys to jump on this, but there is no evidence of one claim or the other. In other news, other reps. at this "meeting" have no record of the CIA making these statements. So as far as EVIDENCE goes, it looks (so far) like the CIA is lying...but that's just me...and the evidence...
I totally agree with Clinton!
Peace
Most guy's have run into girls like Pelosi when young & in school.
Well do we remember. Her being from San Fran. well, Hippy Capitol & all I expect she had to work to be more popular than the other school feel good girls. No brains, all emotion with a wicked way of me first last & always.
I will admit, having the Hippy Queen as speaker is awesome. Virtually ensures nobody will attempt to kill Barack.
Why do you think we had Cheney?
:)
Like Dennis Miller said Obam-UH uses Pelosi and Biden as props to make his own gaffes and bumbling appear not so bad. Obam-Uh, Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Biden does it get any more comical.
Dennis Miller as your political reference? "does it get any more comical"?
Clinton is cool!
Peace
I would take the CIA's word over Pelosi's any day. CIA is often referred to the CYA (Cover your -ss) by former operatives and it is very unlikely they would have briefed only one side of the isle knowing how the political winds shift. Pelosi like Al Gore is a hypocritical gas bag and will say anything. Remember Gore (20,000 power bill, Gulf Stream 2, yachts, oil stock, ruled over the SUV boom) and he sells carbon credits.
You could not make this stuff up--
Man talk about not being able to hold your mud, but then again maybe it is a good thing not to be an accomplished lier like Joltin' Joe or Obamao. I've personally been waterboarded down by the cement pond and suffered no ill effects or angst from the enhanced interrogation.
"Her being from San Fran" so says Revnant Dream. Sorry but she is a Baltimore city girl. Her father was mayor.
I hate to say she is from my city. You know, like the Dixie Sluts!
Happy Indep, Let's get those Orioles back on the right track. I'm a lifetime O's fan and this losing is getting ridiculous.
"Dixie Sluts"? "Baltimore"?
Ah, I see now, "happy indep" is suppressing his sexual desire for the Dixie Chicks because he can't love someone and disagree with them at the same time. That's a tough way to live my friend.
Also, you live in Baltimore...Ouch...
Hey Clinton, maybe you should live in the city of Baltimore/Washington DC for awhile instead of Bumpkinville Kansas. I'm not talking metro areas, but the actual cities of B-more or DC. I would love to see you live there for one year. Why do so many liberals live in homogeneous places like Hayseed, KS., Vermont, Maine etc.?
Oh, I love DC, went there for inauguration, it was great. Baltimore isn't much to look at though. You're right "Dirty Harry" there aren't a lot of "libruls" in Kansas, what's your point?
I think the exquisitely beautiful luxurious city by the bay would suit Clinton just fine. Clinton is a man of the world, a true renaissance man. To think that a man of his wordly taste and knowledge is wasting away in Kansas makes me want to blow chunks.
Dirty Harry, "I'm a lifetime O's fan and this losing is getting ridiculous."
They go along the same lines as our legislature.
LOSERS!
Clinton, I like the Dixie Chicks. Still will listen to them. If I stopped listening to those I disagree with, it would narrow my options too much.
Wow. What a far-reaching, unsupported, and outrageous story you’ve written about a subject you seem to know so little about, Ms. Sullivan. I’m not sure what kind of deadly dodgeball games you played in high school, and I don’t even want to know how much you paid for all of those painful and “torturous” cosmetic procedures. But I’d venture to guess that preceding the aforementioned events you were not locked in a tiny, dark, damp cell with little or no food for up to 23 hours straight. I’d also guess you weren’t screamed at or bombarded with accusatory questions between each hit from a ball or poke from a needle during your harsh little brushes with adolescents and plastic surgeons. But you’re right: surely had you actually experienced waterboarding for yourself (and I’m going to “go out on a limb” and assume you haven’t), you’d have much preferred it to a rubber ball and a good round of Botox. Now, I don’t claim to be a firsthand expert on waterboarding either—but John McCain, a
(con't from John McCain, a...) Vietnam veteran and POW, is likely to know much more on the issue. The REPUBLICAN senator himself, who had done briefings with former Vice President Dick Cheney on such techniques, is currently pushing an amendment which would put a stop to waterboarding and similar practices of cruel and unusual punishment. So, let’s leave it up to experts like McCain to decide on the issue and keep America from becoming as barbaric as you make foreigners sound. In the meantime, you can keep telling yourself that no one outside of America can read well enough to understand the Geneva Convention and living happily in suburbia. Ignorance is bliss, after all.
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