i'm kinda surprised that even hannity has to rely on someone as rabid as anne coulter to get agreement on this. i mean, if i gave you a quote 'we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to [our religion]' you'd could easily think it was bin laden ( although he's never said anything as crazy as that! ) or some other nut case extremist - it was ann coulter!
i wonder if you could send hannity and coulter back in time a few decades, when american troops had been water boarded by the japanese - for which some of the japanese were executed - if they'd be saying it was wrong to call what the japanese did to american troops as torture? would they still be calling it a 'wussie interrogation procedure'? would they be saying the execution of the japanese was wrong?
if, as i suspect, they'd say it was torture - and the americans were right in their actions against the japanese - i'd like to know when it stopped being torture?
it seems to me that its torture if done against americans ( as america said it was ) - but not torture if done by americans.
if it's only slightly-less so, why are Coulter and Hannity up in arms?
Not respecting the President's judgement was equal to treason when Bush was in power, so why are they supporting dissent now?
My best guess would be (to paraphrase FDR) "he may be a sunofabitch, but he's [not] our sonofabitch".
Politics of division makes for great tv and sells books. And anyone misguided enough to have backed Dubya 100% for the last 8 years probably feels completely justified lambasting the next guy whether he deserves it or not.
Conservative Radio Host “Mancow” Waterboarded, now says its torture
Chicago conservative radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller decided that there was only one way to silence critics of waterboarding, and that was to get waterboarded himself to prove that the technique isn’t torture.
In a controlled environment Mancow was waterboarded, and lasted 6 seconds, despite claiming before hand that he’d last 30-60 seconds. But this is where it gets interesting, because an exercise to prove waterboarding isn’t torture instead proved to Mancow that it was.
“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,” Mancow said. “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back… It was instantaneous… and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”
Here’s the Mancow waterboarding video. Note some people may find the waterboarding scene distressing.
I wouldn't pay to see anyone water boarded. Sorry, I just don't see humor in it. No matter how much I disliked Bush and his followers I would never stoop to that or even joke. Torture is wrong, plain and simple. What we and other countries have done to prisoners is disgusting.
I for one am a firm believer in what my father taught me about torture carried about by our government (he was a retired USA Army Officer who served in Vietnam and Cambodia). He taught me that torture is wrong under any circumstances. Not only is it inhumane but it also leaves America open to other countries to retaliate by torturing our prisoners. There is something to be said to not sinking to their level. He was right.
I wouldn't pay to see anyone water boarded. Sorry, I just don't see humor in it. No matter how much I disliked Bush and his followers I would never stoop to that or even joke. Torture is wrong, plain and simple. What we and other countries have done to prisoners is disgusting.
I for one am a firm believer in what my father taught me about torture carried about by our government (he was a retired USA Army Officer who served in Vietnam and Cambodia). He taught me that torture is wrong under any circumstances. Not only is it inhumane but it also leaves America open to other countries to retaliate by torturing our prisoners. There is something to be said to not sinking to their level. He was right.
Well said, Sky. I can always rely on you to say politely what I am thinking but too mad to say properly. Thanks for being the polite me...
The current debate over waterboarding has spawned hundreds of newspaper articles in the last two years alone. However, waterboarding has been the subject of press attention for over a century. Examining the four newspapers with the highest daily circulation in the country, we found a significant and sudden shift in how newspapers characterized waterboarding.
From the early 1930s until the modern story broke in 2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture: The New York Times characterized it thus in 81.5% (44 of 54) of articles on the subject and The Los Angeles Times did so in 96.3% of articles (26 of 27).
By contrast, from 2002‐2008, the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as torture. The New York Times called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture in just 2 of 143 articles (1.4%). The Los Angeles Times did so in 4.8% of articles (3 of 63). The Wall Street Journal characterized the practice as torture in just 1 of 63 articles (1.6%). USA Today never called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture.
In addition, the newspapers are much more likely to call waterboarding torture if a country other than the United States is the perpetrator. In The New York Times, 85.8% of articles (28 of 33) that dealt with a country other than the United States using waterboarding called it torture or implied it was torture while only 7.69% (16 of 208) did so when the United States was responsible. The Los Angeles Times characterized the practice as torture in 91.3% of articles (21 of 23) when another country was the violator, but in only 11.4% of articles (9 of 79) when the United States was the perpetrator.
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