Torture Musings

Fearturing:

Rodney the Republican
Larry the Liberal

ACT 1

Rodney: It is hypocritical for Congressional Democrats to call for public hearings and criminal prosecution when many of them knew about the enhanced interrogation techniques since 2002 and approved of it.

Larry: First of all, it's called torture and second of all, Nancy Pelosi, who at the time was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN she was not told that waterboarding or other enhanced methods would be used but only that Bush officials were under legislative counsel and that if and when they would be used Congress would be briefed at that time.

Rodney: Why didn't she raise any objections? Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who replaced Pelosi as the committee's top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee in January 2003, filed an official protest.

Larry: True, but . . .

Rodney: And another thing! The CIA admitted that a videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of the Bush Justice Department and the White House and yet President Obama says prosecuting anyone from CIA is off limits. This makes absolutely no sense. The CIA wanted to use these techniques and felt they were important. If it's torture then why aren't they being held accountable? It's just President Obama's political theatrics.

Larry: All I know is that even the U.S. military has officially regarded waterboarding as torture since the Spanish-American War. So regardless of the politics, torture is wrong.