November 7, 2007, Volume 15 Nr. 4, Issue 235 Mukasey,
Buchanan, Feinstein, and Schumer. Pat Buchanan, the Right's raucous political commentator has been all over the media in regards to George Bush's choosing Michael Mukasey for being the next United States Attorney General. Mukasey testified before a Senate Committee that he does not know whether the well-known interrogation procedure called waterboarding is torture. Touted as an "expert" political analyst by the similarly minded neo-fascist ideologues who hire him, Buchanan has been offering neo-con news junkies and unaware working folk his take on waterboarding. Buchanan, of course, defends Mukasey. Waterboarding, however, is not as Buchanan suggests: simulated drowning. It IS drowning! Ever eager to "enlighten" his audience with his self-righteous re-education, Buchanan reveals how conflicted he really is. On Monday, November 5, 2007, on MSNBC, following Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" show, pitchman Pat stated with dismissive jocularity that waterboarding wasn't torture since the person undergoing it was being told ahead of time what was to happen, that they would not die. Let's take a closer look at Buchanan's argument.
Pat Buchanan is a Roman Catholic. In that religion, the Passion of Jesus Christ plays a central role in its redemption mythology. Tens of millions of Roman Catholics, like Pat Buchanan, literally believe in the Passion of the Christ which was so pornographically presented in Mel Gibson's movie by the same name. The movie graphically depicts the bodily assaults and pain purportedly inflicted upon Jesus Christ. But was it torture? Was placing the crown of thorns on Jesus' head torture? Was lashing torture? Were the chains? How about carrying the heavy cross? Like many Roman Catholic churches, the one that I attended as a young man, had the Stations of the Cross. The BBC.CO.UK website states about the Stations: "The Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) takes the faithful on a journey through the final stages of the Passion". The faithful stop at the fourteen stations, pray, re-visit the passion, and often "feel" the pain associated with each. But Jesus knew in advance what was coming. He was informed about the impending events when he "spoke" to God in the Garden at Gethsemane. From the song "Gethsemane (I only want to know)" in the play "Jesus Christ Superstar":
God tells Jesus not to worry, that after it's all over, after all the pain and suffering, that Jesus' existence will continue. According to the Pat Buchanan school of waterboarding, Jesus was not tortured. He knew he would be resurrected. What Catholic would believe that? It's clear that Pat Buchanan doesn't believe what he is saying regarding Mukasey and waterboarding. Buchanan's political ideology gets in the way of his faith. It also gets in the way of the decency and the morality that he professes is the United States of America, his Fatherland, . Perhaps that is the point, that Buchanan's Fatherland supersedes his Father just as it supersedes everything else, including the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Convention. Fatherland is what fascists turn to when they cover up their personal internal conflicts in favor of domination over everything. To fascists, waterboarding becomes not to be torture. The United States becomes a country that does not torture. Extreme rendition becomes not kidnapping. People's disappearances become not unconstitutional. Assassination becomes not being murder. "Preventive war" becomes not aggression. And collateral damage is no longer contrary to "thou shall not kill". Death becomes not being contrary to the "pursuit of life". To hell with "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights." I ask you, Pat Buchanan, would your Jesus Christ sanction waterboarding? Are you not like those who "tortured" Christ and then passed the buck, abrogating responsibility for it? How do you live with yourself? The Roman Catholic Church used waterboarding during the Spanish Inquisition. Called the "water cure", the Crime Library, Criminal Minds and Methods website describes the water cure thusly,
Shame on you Michael Mukasey. Shame on you Pat Buchanan. You and the acting commander-in-chief and pretend president George W. Bush, vice president Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, John Negroponte, John Ashcroft, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, the entire cabal, are all torturers and violators of the U.S. Constitution. As Al Alexander states in the Progressive Daily Beacon of November 7, 2007,
John Sifton of Human Rights Watch says of waterboarding, "The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law." On November 5, 2006, on the MSBC program "Countdown with Kieth Olbermann", Mr. Olbermann said the following about the victim of waterboarding.
That crime would mean George W. Bush is going to prison.
Let's do it! Let's defend the U.S. Constitution. Let's Impeach, try, convict, and incarcerate George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their entire gang of thugs. And when we are finished with them here, let's send them to The Hague for the judgment of the world. |