By- Suzie-Q @ 9:00 AM MST
Lieberman Supports Waterboarding: ‘It’s Not Like Using Hot Coals’
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman reluctantly acknowledged Thursday that he does not believe waterboarding is torture, but believes the interrogation technique should be available only under the most extreme circumstances.
Lieberman was one of 45 senators who voted Wednesday in opposition to a bill that would limit the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method where detainees typically are strapped to a bench and have water poured into their mouth and nose making them feel as if they will drown.
The Senate passed the measure. [...]
“You want to be able to use emergency tech to try to get the information out of that person,” Lieberman said. Of course, Lieberman believes such authority has limits. He does not believe the president could authorize having hot coals pressed on someone’s flesh to obtain that information.
The difference, he said, is that waterboarding is mostly psychological and there is no permanent physical damage. “It is not like putting burning coals on people’s bodies. The person is in no real danger. The impact is psychological,” Lieberman said. Lieberman said that his position on waterboarding differs from that of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who he has endorsed as a presidential candidate. As a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam, McCain was tortured. McCain, he said, believes waterboarding is torture.
I found this old article regarding Lieberman and Enron… (yeah, remember that scandal?)
interesting indeed… perhaps Lieberman would like to be waterboarded so that he can tell the truth?
Joe Lieberman’s Cover-Up
Where is Robert Rubin?
July 23, 2002 9:45 a.m.
The news this morning for Citigroup, Inc., one of Enron’s largest creditors, is bad.
The New York Times reports that “senior credit officers of Citigroup misrepresented the full nature of a 1999 transaction with Enron in the records of the deal so that Enron could ignore accounting requirements and hide its true financial condition, according to internal bank documents and government investigators.” The Wall Street Journal reports that Enron “marketed similarly structured deals to a slew of other companies.” And yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Citigroup, along with J. P. Morgan Chase & Co., “transferred billions of dollars to Enron … in recent years in what amounted to loans that Houston energy trader concealed as it struggled to survive .…”
Given the central role played by Citigroup in concealing Enron’s debt from investors, the general public, and government regulators, why, then, hasn’t former Clinton treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, now the chairman of Citigroup’s executive committee, been called to testify before Congress?
In particular, why hasn’t the chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Joseph Lieberman, sought Rubin’s testimony? After all, Lieberman is heading up the Senate’s investigation into Enron’s bankruptcy and fraudulent dealings.
And there’s ample reason to hear from Rubin. In addition to this week’s disclosures about Citigroup’s assistance in cooking Enron’s books, during Enron’s final days Rubin played a direct role in attempting to conceal Enron’s financial condition from credit-rating agencies. Specifically, on November 8, 2001, Rubin made a telephone call to Peter Fisher, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for domestic finance, seeking Fisher’s intervention with Wall Street credit-rating agencies on behalf of Enron when those agencies were about to downgrade Enron’s ratings.
Joe Lieberman’s Cover-Up–Where is Robert Rubin?
A little info about Robert Rubin:
Later, affirming his career-long interest in markets, Mr. Rubin joined Citigroup. He serves as a Director and Chairman of the Executive Committee, and remains there to this day. He sparked controversy in 2001 when he contacted an acquaintance at the Treasury Department and asked if the department could convince bond-rating agencies not to downgrade the corporate debt of Enron, a debtor of Citigroup. Rubin wanted Enron creditors to lend money to the troubled company for a restructuring of its debt; a collapse of the energy giant might have serious consequences for financial markets and energy distribution. The Treasury official refused. A subsequent congressional staff investigation cleared Rubin of any wrongdoing, but he was still harshly criticized by political opponents.
And, you might ask, what is Robert Rubin doing now?
He is currently engaged actively as a founder of The Hamilton Project, an economic policy think tank, which produces research and proposals on how to create a growing economy that benefits all Americans.
Robert Rubin
Great job Rubie!
LOL
How benevolent and merciful of Old Waterboard Joe to allow psychological abuse. The only problem is waterboarding is physical abuse as well.
I guess if Joe was questioned before a tribunal and told his children would be killed and his wife raped if he didn’t tell the truth, then that would be OK with him. It’s only psychological.
You know, like terrorizing someone.
If you are charged with setting policy for the nation, and you don’t know whether a particular technique is torture, maybe you should try it out to make sure. If you have decided that it is not torture, then you wouldn’t mind demonstrating it, right?
Besides, study after study after study show that while extreme coercive methods will extract information, it is often wrong information. People will say anything you want them to if you push them hard enough, whether its true or not.
Joe Lieberman – American Traitor Zionist Bitch.