Here's what waterboarding looks like

If Michael Mukasey can't say it's torture, he can't be attorney general.

Published November 1, 2007 10:28AM (EDT)

I linked to this Current TV video a few days ago, but I know some people missed it. We got permission from Current to put it on our site directly for easier viewing. In my comments thread a few people asked why network news heavyweights hadn't tried this simulation; it's telling no one but Current's Kaj Larsen, a Special Forces operative turned journalist, thought of it last year when the torture debate heated up again.

MSNBC's Dan Abrams has been running clips of it as he takes on lame right-wing torture advocates and criticizes attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey's cowardice in not calling waterboarding torture. On Abrams' show Monday night with me, Michael Reagan suggested that torture opponent Sen. Lindsey Graham should himself be waterboarded; Wednesday the sad Cliff May insisted Mukasey was right to refrain from judging waterboarding torture without knowing the "context" in which it was used. Torture is torture no matter what its context or purpose. We need an attorney general who knows that.

I saw this video earlier this year when I first visited Current TV, and I couldn't get it out of my head. I'm glad to have it here. It's disturbing, but it makes Mukasey's dodge that much more outrageous.


By Joan Walsh



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