Tortured Logic

The Wall Street Journal mincingly reports:

"[Cheney] called himself "a big supporter of water-boarding," which critics say amounts to torture."

When are we going to get a grip on reality and stop with the bullsh*t? To say 'critics say' waterboarding 'amounts to' torture is like saying 'critics say' shooting strangers in the street from your living room window 'amounts to' murder.

Every court in America and in the world considers waterboarding torture. The Red Cross considers it torture. The UN Convention on Torture considers it torture. The Geneva Conventions consider it torture. Hell, even the Spanish Inquisition considered it torture. That's why they invented it. Repeat after me: waterboarding is T-O-R-T-U-R-E. Got it?

And maybe the Washington Post should be making more of Cheney's statement in that it amounts to a public admission of guilt. As Andrew Sullivan says:

"So the former vice-president has just confessed to a war crime. I repeat: the former vice-president has just confessed to a war crime. There is no statute of limitations for such a crime; and the penalty under law is either the death penalty or a prison sentence for life."

Oh well... we can at least dream that American justice lives up to the standards of Rwanda, Bosnia, Israel and the various other places who actually put their war criminals on trial instead of on TV.