Torture, Cheney, and Spineless Democrats

First, the good news. Chicago-based conservative radio host Eric "Mancow" Muller underwent waterboarding in an effort to silence critics of the procedure by showing, once and for all, that it is not torture (no, that's not the good part). But, as it turned out, Muller decided waterboarding is torture. I'm thrilled for Mancow's revelation; hopefully his words rang true in the ears of torture excusers across the land.

Here's the video:



Now some more good news. A former 14-year interrogator thoroughly rebuked last week's remarks by former Vice President Cheney on torture. The interrogator has overseen more than 1,000 interrogations and conducted over 300 himself in Iraq, including the interrogation of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. And guess what? He did it all using traditional methods - no torture. Here's the video (a quadruple-level, immediate must-watch):



And now even more good news (we're on a roll). General Petraeus has endorsed Obama's close Gitmo/no more torture decisions.

I have long been on record as having testified and also in helping write doctrine for interrogation techniques that are completely in line with the Geneva Convention. And as a division commander in Iraq in the early days, we put out guidance very early on to make sure that our soldiers, in fact, knew that we needed to stay within those guidelines.

With respect to Guantanamo. I think that the closure in a responsible manner, obviously one that is certainly being worked out now by the Department of Justice -- I talked to the Attorney General the other day [and] they have a very intensive effort ongoing to determine, indeed, what to do with the detainees who are left, how to deal with them in a legal way, and if continued incarceration is necessary -- again, how to take that forward. But doing that in a responsible manner, I think, sends an important message to the world, as does the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees.

That's pretty staunch support from a very prominent military leader (and one who has been praised up and down by all manner of conservatives).

And now the bad, yet unsurprising, news. The Democrats are wimps. I know, I know. It's a shock. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in particular, is a wimp. The Nevada senator reportedly led the charge against the bill to provide funding to close Gitmo out of a concern of appearing too "liberal". Reid is, justifiably, afraid of losing his senate seat. But maybe, instead of trying to play politics with issues as important as national security and torture, he should do his job. Just a thought. It is nothing short of astounding that even though the Democrats control both houses of Congress and the White House and have at their helm the most charismatic, pragmatic leader in a generation (that being Obama) they are still bowing to Republican ideology at every turn. Furthermore Obama has already paved the road for them by taking very early stands on torture and closing Gitmo. All they have to do is follow. Yet they are completely inept at doing even that. Someone mentioned to me the other day that the Democrats are still acting like their in the minority (and the Republicans, unfortunately, think they're still in the majority). Mr. Reid, grow a pair or get out.

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Originally posted at The Political Panorama.