Again...
It seems that the nominee to replace dissembling Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez has his own dissembling problem with waterboarding and torture.
When asked by member of the Judiciary Committee, Sheldon Whitehouse, at the confirmation hearing last week, Mike Mukasey responded,
"If waterboarding is torture... torture is not Constitutional," he replied.
That seemed an ambiguous response to Senator Whitehouse. TPM captured his retort:
"That is a massive hedge.... It either is or it isn't."
Details about this concern is documented over at TPM Muckraker
In a letter to Mike Mukasey, the Democratic committee members provided a summary review of the practice of waterboarding through recent history. They take him to the schoolhouse with respect to how history, the military and Geneva convention define waterboarding.
...all eight Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have sent Mukasey a detailed primer on the centuries-old torture technique. It includes some surprising historical details: did you know, for instance, that during the occupation of Japan, the U.S. prosecuted Japanese soldiers who waterboarded U.S. POWs?
You can see a copy of the letter here.
After this education moment comes the money question:
"Is the use of waterboarding or inducing the misperception of drowning as an interrogation technique illegal under U.S.law, including treaty obligations?"
I'm waiting....