Tag Archives: waterboarding

On Torture, Cheney Implicates Bush

On Face the Nation today: SCHIEFFER: How much did President Bush know specifically about the methods that were being used? We know that you– and you have said– that you approved this… CHENEY: Right. SCHIEFFER: … somewhere down the line. … Continue reading

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Today’s Five Curious Links of Note

Futurist Ray Kurzweil is interviewed in New Scientist . . . more Media Matters tracks the far right’s response to Barack Obama’s use of Dijon mustard on a hamburger. Dijon mustard, it appears, is “elitist” and the new arugula . . . … Continue reading

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Today’s Question: Where Did Waterboarding Come From?

I’ve been reading Jonathan Kirsch’s history of the the Inquisition, titled The Grand Inquisitor’s Manuel: A History of Terror in the Name of God (Harper-Collins 2008), and waterboarding is a gift to George Bush (and the Gestapo and Stalin’s Secret … Continue reading

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Bush Era Torture: Were Top Officials Really Flying Blind?

George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” According to the New York Times this week, Bush era torture was being authorized by officials who hadn’t even bothered to investigate, historically, the methods they … Continue reading

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Word of the Day

Waterboarding. Here’s how Jonathan Kirsch describes waterboarding in his excellent and troubling 2008 Harper-Collins book, The Grand Inquisitor’s Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God (p. 4): Among the first and favorite forms of torture used by medieval inquisitors … Continue reading

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Bush Era Torture Lawyers and the Banality of Evil

A passage from one of the Bush era torture memos set to music: Waterboarding, by the way, as a torture method, goes back to the Spanish Inquisition.  Here’s how Jonathan Kirsch describes waterboarding in his excellent and troubling 2008 Harper-Collins … Continue reading

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VERY BIG NEWS: Barack Obama Releases Bush Era Torture Memos

This is why I voted for Barack Obama. He stopped the compromising of our national values by putting an end to torture, and now he’s bringing into the air and sunlight the Bush era documents that enjoined the use of torture. You … Continue reading

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Pope Benedict: “Neo-Medieval Conservative?”

Pope Benedict seems to be the George Bush of Catholicism—disdaining moderation, ignoring criticism, and lurching his church to the VERY CREEPY RIGHT at every opportunity. Perhaps we should call it “Neo-Medieval Conservatism.” The Guardian of London today reports on the pope’s … Continue reading

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At Long Last, the Orwellian Language is OVER: Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder Says “Waterboarding is torture”

What a relief to hear honest language regarding what torture is. This today from the AP: It was the first topic discussed at [Attorney General nominee Eric] Holder’s confirmation hearing, and he made an unambiguous statement about its nature: “Waterboarding … Continue reading

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Christopher Hitchens Undergoes Waterboarding—and Finds It to Be Torture

In the August 2008 Vanity Fair, one of my heroes, author and essayist, Christopher Hitchens, takes us vicariously along with him in an experience of waterboarding. Veteran experts of the procedure waterboarded Hitchens in North Carolina in May, and Hitchens … Continue reading

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