...or is listening to Dick Cheney a legal form of torture?

What year is this anyway? Are we really engaged in a Congressional debate about what constitutes torture? Is the country that champions the concept of freedom for everyone and fought wars against oppression, actually parsing whether inflicting intentional, premeditated suffering is justified as a interrogation technique? Is America so afraid of Islamic bogeymen that we would torch our Constitution and roll back human rights to concepts that were repudiated in the sixteenth century? Watching Judge Michael Mukasey attempt to dance between the raindrops at his confirmation hearing is truly disturbing. He was originally quoted as expressing repugnance at the idea that Americans would condone torturing prisoners. Now, however, the judge is having second thoughts. As Mukasey waffles about this vital issue,so does his support in the Senate. Once a virtual lock to be confirmed as the new Attorney General, Judge Mukasey is currently undergoing a little torture of his own. There is no ambiguity about what constitutes torture. If you are inflicting pain on a prisoner in order to elicit information, that's torture. Period. Waterboarding, thumb screws, the rack and extended sleep deprivation all amount to the same thing. Monty Python notwithstanding, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. The incredible cynicism of this administration on this issue borders on the criminal. This gang of cowards actually thinks that torture is OK as long as we fly the prisoner to another country and allow client governments to do the deed. At least Saddam did his own dirty work. American veterans who witnessed first hand the consequences of state sponsored pain in Germany, are happily voting for Republicans who visit the same treatment on Muslims. If you think it's different, you're kidding yourself. What you hear as justification is, "We are torturing them because they attacked us on 9-11." Wrong! We are torturing them because they look like and worship like those who attacked us on 9-11. In 1942, we incarcerated 120,000 Japanese Americans for only one reason: fear. Attorney General Tom Clark, a loyal Democrat, gave the green light to the decision. Although America has apologized since, I suspect that most people at the time felt a bit better knowing that all those little almond-eyed devils were safely behind the wire in the western dessert. After all, they attacked us, didn't they? History has a way of occasionally making us look pretty stupid. (For reference please consult the history of America's Inquisition aka, The House Committee on Un-American Activities.) I suspect that a more enlightened generation in the future will read the transcripts of Judge Mucasey's hearing with bemusement. Were America's leaders really trying to quantify how much inflicted pain constitutes torture? Is the definition the same for women as men? Why would America even be torturing people? Didn't they know that the intel gathered at sword-point is unreliable? If George W. Bush thinks that waterboarding and other forms of torture are acceptable interrogation techniques, let him say so. Stop hiding behind your Attorney General's legal skirts and hold a press conference. "I come before you today to assert that the United States feels completely justified squeezing the gonads of any Middle Easterner who hates us for our freedom. I don't care what the Attorney General thinks." A speech like that could cause Kansas to ratify the repeal of the 22nd Amendment. (look it up) So in summation: Torture is wrong Torture is unconstitutional Torture produces bad, unreliable intelligence Only an Attorney General who recieved his law degree on-line from headupyourass.com would condone torture. Class dismissed.