Letters to the Editor
tempus
Published Letters: 469 Editor's Choice: 8
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Not a defense at all
[Read the article: What happened to the Senate's "60-vote requirement"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]the reason they let Mukasey slide on declaring waterboarding to be torture is they didn't want to saddle him with the responsibilty to prosecute those who engaged in waterboarding.
By letting Mukasey "slide", the Dems codified torture because there is NO WAY Mukasey will now come back and say it is torture. The Dems, poor babies, didn't want to saddle the putative AG with actually having to DO HIS JOB and uphold the law by, you know, PROSECUTING criminals. The laws are not for Presidents and Senators and Representatives, they are for the little people.
I will repeat: they will now try to pass a law banning waterboarding. This is a DISASTER. It would give full legal protection to Bush, Cheney, etc, for ordering torture in the past, and it would give full legal protection to those who actually carried out the torture because ex post facto protections would ensue with passage.
They also, as I have said, would make matters like waterboarding merely matters of parochial national statute with no binding hold on ANY other country. China, Russia, Britain, France, Nigeria, etc, etc, could pass statutes making waterboarding OK (when it is, in fact, illegal torture that CANNOT be legalized) and they would then be absolutely free to use it against US citizens and soldiers...and the US couldn't do anything about it because WE took it out of the realm of torture by our actions and our law.
It would have been better to NOT confirm Mukasey and let the current rogue/criminal regime continue with the acting AG. Then, should a true human being take the Presidency in our lifetime (a long shot) they would be able to regain the honor the US has lost by putting all the torturers of the Bush regime on trial. But by passing a law banning waterboarding...all that blows away.
Waterboarding is torture, under US law and international law and Treaty...until Schumer gets a law passed making it merely illegal under US statute.
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Really? Move on?
[Read the article: What happened to the Senate's "60-vote requirement"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What's done is done and it's time to move on to the next fight. You have no idea how many of them you all face. You win some, you lose some.
I'm sorry, but "win some, lose some"? On torture? Also, pray tell, what precisely are the "some" that we've "won"? Minimum wage? Oooooooh! You're right! THAT makes up for prolonging the war, spying on Americans, codifying torture, STILL not rescinding the MCA... YOU say, "win some, lose some", while I can only conclude that the Democraps in Congress see it as "winning" when they CONTINUE everything Bush has initiated AND when they give him EVERYTHING he wants. Or do you also count the latest water project veto override as a great win? That "won" because EVERY state had their hand in the till on that bill. EVERY state was getting money on that so OF COURSE it would beat Bush's veto. It counts as a win slightly lower than the minimum wage bill...which doesn't hold a candle to "losing", as you call it, on illegal spying, torture, ignoring subpoenas, war, etc.
There are no wins here to be cheering.
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So? @LWM
[Read the article: What happened to the Senate's "60-vote requirement"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Try to grasp the reality of the situation. Mukasey was going to get a recess appt. and serve until the end of Bush's term. End of story.
Yes, should this have happened, then it would have happened entirely by Bush's hand and torture would still be torture and those responsible for it criminally liable. Now, because the Dems consented to Mukasey, they are complicit and must now enshrine their complicity into the law by making waterboarding (once upon a time it was torture) into a merely illegal act for the US to use in interrogations. The Dems get to add insult to injury by not only giving immunity to the torturers in our midst, but they stab every military member (and even civilians) in the back by ensuring that other countries can merely pass statutes making waterboarding A-OK.
The Dems have officially decided that being on the fence about torture is not a disqualifier for serving in government.
None of this would be so if they had required Bush to recess appoint him OR simply left the current acting criminal AG in charge.
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@anonymust
[Read the article: What happened to the Senate's "60-vote requirement"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Didn't last night's vote come up suddenly? I thought that Reid had said it wouldn't come up immediately, but then it got cobbled together last night... too late (perhaps?) for the candidates to get there in time to vote?
If so, then there can be SOME defense for the Presidential hopefuls...but here's a question. What does it take for the Dems in the senate to unseat Reid as their "leader"? Surely he is not King of the Dems beholden to no one but his Sun King rules? If there is a means of unseating Reid from his leader seat then that is now what I want from one or all the Presidential hopefuls. Reid is a disaster (as is Pelosi). Reid is a failure. Reid is ineffectual. Reid is exceedingly damaging to the Democrats and the country...but then this all ignores the fact brought up in a previous post here that not a single Dem (where were you Feingold!?) voted "nay" on cloture. Quiet acquiescence is what the Dems gave us, even those 40 that officially voted "nay" on the floor vote. Clearly, not a single Dem in the senate at that time felt strongly enough about the unacceptability and outrageousness of torture to even try to stop the train. So while I can and do give Reid all the "credit" he deserves for repeatedly serving Bush so willingly, I cannot credit the rest of the Dems who were (and are) in a position to bring this crap to an end.