http://mediamatters.org/tools/syndication/tag_rss/torture This link is for use by RSS-enabled software to retrieve Media Matters items matching the term: Torture en-US Copyright 2008, Media Matters for America http://mediamatters.org/items/200711020013 In response to Cybercast News Service editor-in-chief Terry Jeffrey's statement that "[i]f the Democrats in the Senate want to ban the procedure by which we got vital information out of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Harry Reid ought to put up a bill right now that says: 'Waterboarding is forbidden. What we did to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed may not be done again.' " CNN's Wolf Blitzer replied: "It sort of reinforces this notion that the Democrats are weak when it comes to national security. That's been a very successful strategy for the Republicans for decades now." In fact, polling shows that the public is split on which party is better on handling terrorism, with some polls showing Democrats with a slight lead. <br /> http://mediamatters.org/items/200711020013 Fri, 2 Nov 2007 18:51:10 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200711020011 An Associated Press report claimed that, in an October 30 letter to Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey "pledged to study," if confirmed, the legality of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding. However, if news reports that the government stopped the use of waterboarding in 2005 are correct, then Mukasey's promise appears not to cover waterboarding, because Mukasey said in his letter that he would "review any coercive interrogation techniques <em>currently</em> used by the United States Government and the legal analysis authorizing their use to assess whether such techniques comply with the law" [emphasis added]. http://mediamatters.org/items/200711020011 Fri, 2 Nov 2007 17:23:51 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200711020009 On CNN, <em>Washington Times</em> columnist Diana West said: "What I would like to see is people really start thinking about what is torture. If putting people into human-size shredders, as Saddam Hussein did, is torture, then waterboarding, which my senior military sources tell me you wake up feeling fine the next day -- it is not torture." However, in congressional testimony, Allen S. Keller, M.D., director of the Bellevue Hospital Center/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, stated, "To think that abusive methods, including the enhanced interrogation techniques [in which Keller included waterboarding], are harmless psychological ploys is contradictory to well established medical knowledge and clinical experience." Keller stated of waterboarding specifically, "Long term effects include panic attacks, depression and PTSD," and said it poses a "real risk of death." http://mediamatters.org/items/200711020009 Fri, 2 Nov 2007 16:57:34 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200711010011 MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named <em>Roll Call</em>'s Mort Kondracke the "winner" of his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for asserting on Fox News' <em>Special Report</em>: "I'm sure [waterboarding] feels like torture, you know, it doesn't result in any lasting damage, but it feels like torture." Olbermann also named Fox News' John Gibson the "runner-up" for criticizing an "NBC news anchor" for offering Sen. Barack Obama advice on what he "needs to say" about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton -- one day after Gibson himself had offered Obama advice. http://mediamatters.org/items/200711010011 Thu, 1 Nov 2007 15:29:54 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200710310004 In a Fox News "All-Star" panel discussion, Morton Kondracke said of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, "I'm sure it feels like torture, you know, it doesn't result in any lasting damage, but it feels like torture." But a physician who heads a program for torture survivors told a Senate committee that techniques such as waterboarding "are intended to break the prisoners down, to terrify them and cause harm to their psyche, and in so doing result in lasting harmful health consequences." He also said: "There is a real risk of death from actually drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs." <br /> http://mediamatters.org/items/200710310004 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:16:20 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200710120007 Responding to a reader's question about an article she co-wrote, <em>The Washington Post</em>'s Anne E. Kornblut stated, "We asked Sen. [Hillary Rodham] Clinton what she would do, upon taking office, about special interrogation methods ... such as waterboarding or sexual humiliation. ... And her response was simply that she opposes torture, which of course is also the current policy." But according to a transcript of the interview, Clinton was not specifically asked about "waterboarding or sexual humiliation," and she did not refuse to say whether she would prohibit such measures. Indeed, she said that she would "draw a bright line and say 'No torture,' " and that she would "abide by the Geneva conventions, [and] abide by the laws we have passed." http://mediamatters.org/items/200710120007 Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:31:34 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200710110001 <em>The</em> <em>Washington Post</em>'s Anne E. Kornblut and Dan Balz reported that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was "vague about how she would handle special interrogation methods used by the CIA." Adding, "She said that while she does not condone torture, so much has been kept secret that she would not know unless elected what other extreme measures interrogators are using, and therefore could not say whether she would change or continue existing policies." But blogger Greg Sargent later reported that Kornblut and Balz omitted from their article Clinton's statement that "I think we have to draw a bright line and say 'No torture -- abide by the Geneva conventions, abide by the laws we have passed,' and then try to make sure we implement that." http://mediamatters.org/items/200710110001 Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:14:39 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200709120009 Among the reasons cited by Charles Krauthammer that Al Qaeda has not and cannot "hit us" is because the Bush administration has waged an "incredibly effective war in Afghanistan" that he said has "expelled Al Qaeda and scattered it, and has kept it off-balance for six years now." In fact, the July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Al Qaeda "has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability" including a "safehaven" in Pakistan. Krauthammer also credited "secret prisons and the interrogation which yielded and interrogated people like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed"; but even supporters of the CIA's interrogation and detention program reportedly acknowledge that much of the information that coercion produces, including information gathered from Mohammed, is unreliable. <br /> http://mediamatters.org/items/200709120009 Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:49:30 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200706110007 http://mediamatters.org/items/200706110007 Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:47:23 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200702020015 Cal Thomas is the latest conservative figure to use the TV show <em>24</em> to forecast a nuclear attack on the United States. Conservatives have also looked to the TV series for justification of aggressive interrogation procedures. http://mediamatters.org/items/200702020015 Fri, 2 Feb 2007 16:10:34 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200701190016 http://mediamatters.org/items/200701190016 Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:19:50 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200611060004 Fox News' Steve Harrigan underwent what he described as three "phase[s]" of the controversial interrogation technique known as "waterboarding," on camera, concluding that the technique is "a pretty efficient mechanism to get someone to talk and then still have them alive and healthy within minutes." Psychologists have asserted that "such forms of near-asphyxiation" can lead to long-term psychological damage. <br /> http://mediamatters.org/items/200611060004 Mon, 6 Nov 2006 14:44:21 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200610300006 http://mediamatters.org/items/200610300006 Mon, 30 Oct 2006 16:21:29 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200609290002 http://mediamatters.org/items/200609290002 Fri, 29 Sep 2006 12:29:07 EST http://mediamatters.org/items/200609250008 A <em>Media Matters</em> review of major media outlets found that only <em>The Washington Post</em> highlighted the major differences between remarks by Republican Sens. John McCain and Bill Frist on separate Sunday morning news shows on August 24. While McCain stated that "waterboarding and other extreme measures such as extreme deprivation -- sleep deprivation, hypothermia, and others" could be illegal under new rules for U.S. interrogations of terrorism suspects, Frist asserted that "no responsible person" is going to "comment on individual techniques" that would or would not be permitted under the new law, because doing so "helps the terrorists." http://mediamatters.org/items/200609250008 Mon, 25 Sep 2006 18:20:21 EST