Missing Constitution

I just read two horrible stories about torture done in the name of the US government. In one, an illegal  immigrant was detained for almost one year and was not given urgent medical care. He had a cancerous growth on his penis, and he is dying.  In the other, an Egyptian who was believed to be a terrorist (later found not to be) was told by the FBI to confess to his crimes or his family would be tortured by Egyptian authorities.

Is this the US?  Will a candidate for the highest legal position in the country, Michael Mukasey, be confirmed for his position when he can't even say for certain whether waterboarding represents torture? This torture technique was introduced in the Spanish inquisition, and was a war crime in WW II. If he doesn't know that its torture and that the US is in serious trouble, we need someone who can do the job.

I want my country back.

Comments

[slugbug]

Halloween night .. I heard about waterboarding and Mukassey on the way home drive .. NPR.
Talking about how IF he admitted waterboarding was torture, then alot of his friends in high places would have to go to jail.

Making parallels in my mind with the witch trial custom in Salem where women were put into water. If they drowned, they were innocent of witchcraft. If they floated, they were a witch and were put to death.

How far we haven't come.

Heard a Spanish woman talking about WHY she thought her husband and son were blown up in the Madrid bombings (trials were today and the Socialists in Spain were alot more fair-handed legally than the goons of Guantanamo) - anyway she said it was because the Spanish were participating in the Iraq war.

Torture increases terrorism. It's got to be.

[slugbug]

One good story

http://www.radioink.com/HeadlineEntry.asp?hid=139839&pt=todaysnews

WASHINGTON -- October 31, 2007: Interrupting FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's opening remarks at Wednesday's FCC localism hearing was a woman dressed in a skimpy French maid's outfit, who successfully fended off two security guards' efforts to oust her from the room.

Samantha Miller, appearing on behalf of anti-consolidation group Code Pink, added some activist touches to her Halloween costume by writing the word faux in marker across her bosom, along with references to major media outlets like ABC, Viacom, and Disney elsewhere on her body.

[slugbug]

"A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a
fundamentalist Kansas church [aka Fred Phelps] that pickets military
funerals out of a belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the
nation's tolerance of homosexuality."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071031/ap_on_re_us/funeral_protests