Mr Kiriakou said he was carefully briefed on what had happened.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3244719.ece

Kiriakou was not personally involved in torturing Zubaydah, but was part of an interrogation team that questioned him in a hospital in Pakistan after he was captured in 2002http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13880.html

Kiriakou said he did not witness Abu Zubaida's waterboarding.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/10/AR2007121002091_pf.html

Kiriakou wasn't present during Zubaydah's interrogation, and he said in the interviews that he learned the details from briefing documents. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/23517.html

The key word here "IS NOT DEFINED", therefore once again, torture has to be defined and if our president says it is not torture, it's
not torture, for the third time.

He was sitting in front of a classroom of children, and at that point, he could not make a move at all without awaiting protcol, I believe Bush reacted as he should have, what did you expect him to do? Start screaming in the classroom in front of the children? That's ridiculous.

I believe Bush reacted as he should have

mpaul7172 :

Waterboarding, whether productive (those utilizing it must have thought so at the time) or not, was an attempted tool to stymie the horrid violence being perpetrated by jihadists, who were attempting to overthrow the newly-elected government of Iraq.

That waterboarding has been projected as a poster child of the Iraq War can only lead me to be extremely skeptical about how much grasp on reality some people have.

Montreal Guy said: "The three people waterboarded had no direct connection to Iraq."
====
my comment: THREE PEOPLE. None died, right?

Meanwhile, we have the thousands I had previously mentioned - the Iraqi police, military, USA troops - killed by jihadists and/or insurgents.

So what do jihadists, Democratic politicians, and a compliant USA media have in common?

**** they make waterboarding a big issue in Congress, and keep it in the papers****

Make a mountain out of a molehill.

Thanks Demos and media.

That waterboarding has been projected as a poster child of the Iraq War can only lead me to be extremely skeptical about how much grasp on reality some people have.

The Politics of Cruelty

In 1942, Himmler issued an order authorizing the use of what he specified as "the Third Degree" in interrogations, in Peters's view "clearly intending by that term to indicate torture." The Third Degree was used to extract confessions from prisoners. Himmler gave a blanket permission for its use without further authorization against "communists, Marxists, Jehovah's Witnesses, saboteurs, terrorists, members of resistance movements, antisocial elements, refractory elements," and a group of unfortunates referred to as Polish or Soviet "vagabonds."
In the methods of the Third Degree lie the essential elements of all torture technique. E ward Peters and his predecessor, the great French legalist Alec Mellors, designate this system as the basis for the modern practice of torture. It is as follows: close confinement, starvation diet, hidden cells, extraordinary exercise or labor, sleep deprivation, and beatings. Moreover, physicians were to be at hand to prevent prisoners from being killed under torture, that is, to preserve them for further interrogation. In this way the Third Reich not only brought back a systematic torture but transformed it into a medical specialty, a transformation which was to have great consequences throughout the second half of the twentieth century.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Torture/NaziCamp_TPOC.html

Who would Jesus torture?"

- Ronald Reagan

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.


- US President Ronald Reagan
Message to the Senate Transmitting the Convention Against Torture and Inhuman Treatment or Punishment
May 20th, 1988

To do differently would not only offend our values as Americans, but undermine our war effort, because abuse of prisoners harms — not helps — us in the war on terror.

First, subjecting prisoners to abuse leads to bad intelligence, because under torture a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop.

Second, mistreatment of our prisoners endangers U.S. troops who might be captured by the enemy — if not in this war, then in the next.

And third, prisoner abuses exact on us a terrible toll in the war of ideas, because inevitably these abuses become public. When they do, the cruel actions of a few darken the reputation of our country in the eyes of millions. American values should win against all others in any war of ideas, and we can’t let prisoner abuse tarnish our image.

What all this means is that America is the only country in the world that asserts a legal right to engage in cruel and inhuman treatment. But the crazy thing is that it is not even necessary, because the Administration has said that it will not engage in cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as a matter of policy. What this also means is that confusion about the rules becomes rampant again. We have so many differing legal standards and loopholes that our lawyers and generals are confused — just imagine our troops serving in prisons and the field.

- John McCain

"Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren…. Provide everything necessary for them on the road."

- George Washington , in reaction to news of capture of 1,000 Hessians at the battle of Trenton.

Fischer writes that leaders in both the Continental Congress and the Continental Army resolved that the War of Independence would be conducted with a respect for human rights. This was all the more extraordinary because these courtesies were not reciprocated by King George's armies. Indeed, the British conducted a deliberate campaign of atrocities against American soldiers and civilians. While Americans extended quarter to combatants as a matter of right and treated their prisoners with humanity, British regulars and German mercenaries were threatened by their own officers with severe punishment if they showed mercy to a surrendering American soldier. Captured Americans were tortured, starved and cruelly maltreated aboard prison ships.

Washington decided to behave differently. After capturing 1,000 Hessians in the Battle of Trenton, he ordered that enemy prisoners be treated with the same rights for which our young nation was fighting. In an order covering prisoners taken in the Battle of Princeton, Washington wrote: "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren…. Provide everything necessary for them on the road."

"I know of no policy, God is my witness, but this — Piety, Humanity and Honesty are the best Policy. Blasphemy, Cruelty and Villainy have prevailed and may again. But they won't prevail against America, in this Contest, because I find the more of them are employed, the less they succeed."

- John Adams

WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE,
Washington, April 24, 1863.

The following "Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field," prepared by Francis Lieber, LL.D., and revised by a board of officers, of which Maj. Gen. E. A. Hitchcock is president, having been approved by the President of the United States, he commands that they be published for the information of all concerned.

By order of the Secretary of War:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

16. Military necessity does not admit of cruelty--that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions.

- The Lieber Code of 1863
(requested and directed by President Abraham Lincoln, btw)

- the world's first formal code of conduct for the humane treatment of prisoners of war
and the model for the 1929 Geneva Convention

Dwight Eisenhower made a point to guarantee exemplary treatment to German POWs in World War II, and Douglas McArthur ordered application of the Geneva Convention during the Korean War, even though the U.S. was not yet a signatory.

In the Vietnam War, the United States extended the convention's protection to Viet Cong prisoners even though the law did not technically require it.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1217-30.htm

OMG…there was NO “protocol” to follow because our nation had never before experienced what we did on 9/11, so for 6 minutes and 59 seconds he was waiting for…what, a non existent “protocol“, what happened, the last second he realized there was none?

So what do some posters here, and a compliant USA media have in common?
A celebration of poor comprehension and reading skills ?

only a conservative who lives in the fictional realm of “24” could come to the conclusion that Bush can define torture as whatever he wants

MG, your post itself (above) speaks volumes as to the difference in the Nazi torture vs waterboarding. Also, I think we can be pretty cottonpickin confident that the great USA military does not make lampshades from the skins of people.