By Jim Spencer
SpencerSpeaks.com
As would-be U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey plays dumb on what constitutes torture, the lessons of Lewis Welshofer Jr. grow fuzzy in the self-imposed moral ambiguity.
By now, most Americans probably don’t remember Welshofer. Those of us who covered his trial for torturing to death an Iraqi general will never forget him. Welshofer, a chief warrant officer and interrogation expert, stuffed the general in a sleeping bag, tied him inside with electrical wire, sat on the general’s chest and smothered the general each time he refused to answer questions. The general finally couldn’t answer any questions if he wanted to. He was dead.
With guys like Mukasey cleaving to the Bush Administration policy of blurring the line on torture, the servicemen and women asked to apply a stress-position friendly policy will inevitably cross the line.
Mukasey’s grand stand is on waterboarding, where you tie someone to a board, cover his or her face with a cloth and pour water over the cloth to simulate drowning. If Mukasey can’t recognize and condemn that practice as cruel, unusual AND illegal, he is not fit to be
“The law with respect to waterboarding is clear,†Colorado U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar said Wednesday in explaining his opposition to Mukasey’s confirmation. “The Geneva Conventions found it to be illegal. And from all human sensibilities you must conclude that waterboarding is illegal.
“Japanese soldiers who did it to Americans in World War II were convicted of crimes.â€
The refusal to rule out waterboarding is symbolic of a depraved code of conduct that diminishes
Welshofer’s victim was reportedly beaten with a 15-inch sledgehammer handle by CIA interrogators in the days before he died. The photos of the Iraqi general’s body offered in evidence at Welshofer’s trial showed a man covered in horrible, dark bruises.
The general was indeed a high priority target. He helped run Saddam Hussein’s air force. So he probably knew more than he was willing to tell. That he took much of that knowledge to the grave exposes the futility of torture.
But finally, the debate over Mukasey and others in the Bush Administration cannot be about prying information from tight lips. It must be about right and wrong. At this point, the White House has a cataract distorting its moral vision.
Welshofer got a slap on the wrist from a military jury that convicted him of negligent homicide. The crime carried up to 39 months in prison. But the jury recognized Welshofer’s role as a follower, not a leader. For torturing a man to death, the chief warrant officer got two months’ travel restrictions to his post at
This is why Michael Mukasey cannot empower savagery the way his predecessor Alberto Gonzales and other senior Bush officials have. When guys like Gonzales, ex-Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld and Vice president Dick Cheney start dicing the moral edges of interrogation techniques, you get dead bodies. More than that, you invite your enemies to do the same kind of dicing.
This is why the U.S. Senate passed anti-torture legislation once. This is why, said Salazar, the senate will do so again, if that is what it takes to bring Mukasey and the Bush Administration to its senses.
“If Mr. Mukasey is confirmed, we will introduce legislation that affirms waterboarding is illegal,†Salazar said. “Going forward, there should not be any equivocation on this issue.â€
Copyright 2007 by Jim Spencer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
4 users commented in " Mukasey’s Moral Ambiguity Fuels Torture "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI doubt if Mukasey is going to be involved with torture. Doesn’t the AG have other duties that would put him at odds to favor, or not favor torture. Our senator should be able to relax that there is going to be no torture. Sounds like nothing of importance to me.
Mukasey has defended the Patriot Act in the past.The way I understand it, he and his son are “justice” advisors to Giulani’s campaign.
Sure would be convenient for Giulani to have his “man” in place if he’s elected wouldn’t it?
Vote no, Salazar.
Congress has got to put its squeamish little foot down. Since when was taking a moral stand supposed to be comfortable, convenient or cheap? This conduct removes the “Honor” from Duty, Honor, Country. If refusing to confirm Mukasey will leave us with an interim AG, so be it. If the department is demoralized, so be it. To confirm this guy, with his weaseling answers, is to condone these practices, to indemnify the perpetrators, and to create a precedent by default - the deception that we need to better define “torture.”
For all those who have blathered for the past eight or so years about Bill Clinton and his effort to dissemble over the “meaning of is,” I want to hear you dismiss Mukasey and his “meaning of torture.” He’s a credit to Bill Clinton, he is, in his ability to parse words.
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