David Corn

"every leading GOP candidate, save Huckabee, has plenty of reason to feel pretty desperate these days."

And even Huckabee smells of desparation when he refusesto come clean with his sermons.

I think the idea associating sermons with the office of president will turn off many voters - even many that call themselves "Christian"

Thanks for all of your work.

Muslim saves Jews in subway attack

A Muslim saved a group of Jews being attacked on a New York subway in an apparent hate crime.

Hassan Askari, a student at Berkeley College in Manhattan, came to the aid of Walter Adler when he and three friends were attacked on the Q train running between Manhattan and Brooklyn on the night of Dec. 7, according to The Associated Press.

Ten men and women, aged 19 and 20, verbally and physically assaulted Adler and his friends after they wished the assailants "Happy Chanukah" in response to their "Merry Christmas" wish.

Askari, 20, tried to fight off the attackers, which gave Adler time to pull an emergency brake on the Brooklyn-bound train. The assailants were arrested at the next stop.

The attack is being investigated as a hate crime. One of the attackers reportedly had been arrested previously for a hate crime.

"That a random Muslim kid helped some Jewish kids, that's what's positive about New York," Adler, 23, told AP. Adler suffered a broken nose.

Triple car bombs hit south Iraq

Three car bombs have exploded in the southern Iraqi city of Amara, killing at least 39 people and injuring more than 100, police say.

Two bombs exploded in a car park packed with labourers waiting to travel to work, and a third detonated as people gathered to inspect the damage.

Amara is 350km (236 miles) south of the capital, Baghdad, in Maysan province.

Will Iraq's Great Awakening Lead to a Nightmare?

Washington Dispatch: U.S. casualties are down in Iraq. But a retired Army Colonel argues that the surge and American payoffs to Sunni tribal leaders may eventually backfire—producing more instability and possibly a regional war.

Will GOP Contest Become a Theological Smackdown?

I know you lefties would love to have Huckabee as the GOP primary winner so you could attack him as a religious nut. Same old talking points that was used on Bush that didn't stick.

But here's the problem:

Huckabee is a Slick Willie in GOP clothing. Arkansas brings out the best con men.

Guiliani has a lot of baggage but so does Hillary.

Romney might be the guy, but has flip flop issues.

Thomson is just a dud so far.

The only repub that is a stand up guy, one wife, pro war, tough on terror, world leader and american hero is John McCain. I would love to see him make a come back and face Hillary or Obama in the general. He might not believe in torture but takes no prisoners.

By the way, waterboarding is not torture by definition;

tor·ture – 1. the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty.

Waterboarding is not painful but instills fear (a distressful emotion) only-

U.S. casualties are down in Iraq. But

but-but-but

always that but!

"One thing is for certain: There won't be any more mass graves and torture rooms and rape rooms": ~ George W. Bush [press availability in Monterrey, Mexico, Jan. 12, 2004]

Whoops

It does raise its ugly head and it shows its abject stupidity, just to try and raise hackles, from time to time.

Drowning...lungs screaming for air...depleted O2 levels in the brain to the brink of blackout...severe tachycardia as the heart pounds out oxygen poor blood to depleted tissues in the body, the brain, the lungs and back to the heart muscle itself...but then revived just in time to lather, rinse, repeat...

Sounds real peaceful-like...

Volunteers?

C'mon in the water's fine!

This Is What Waterboarding Looks Like

As Congress has debated legislation that would set up military tribunals and govern the questioning of suspected terrorists (whom the Bush administration would like to be able to detain indefinitely), at issue has been what interrogation techniques can be employed and whether information obtained during torture can be used against those deemed unlawful enemy combatants. One interrogation practice central to this debate is waterboarding. It's usually described in the media in a matter-of-fact manner. The Washington Post simply referred to waterboarding a few days ago as an interrogation measure that "simulates drowning." But what does waterboarding look like?

Below are photographs taken by Jonah Blank last month at Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The prison is now a museum that documents Khymer Rouge atrocities. Blank, an anthropologist and former Senior Editor of US News & World Report, is author of the books Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God and Mullahs on the Mainframe. He is a professorial lecturer at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and has taught at Harvard and Georgetown. He currently is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic staff in the Senate, but the views expressed here are his own observations.

His photos show one of the actual waterboards used by the Khymer Rouge. Here's the first:

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This is the last post before davidcorn.com was taken down by a cyber-attack.

History of an Interrogation Technique: Water Boarding

[…]

Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago. A photograph that appeared in The Washington Post of a U.S. soldier involved in water boarding a North Vietnamese prisoner in 1968 led to that soldier's severe punishment.

"The soldier who participated in water torture in January 1968 was court-martialed within one month after the photos appeared in The Washington Post, and he was drummed out of the Army," recounted Darius Rejali, a political science professor at Reed College.

Earlier in 1901, the United States had taken a similar stand against water boarding during the Spanish-American War when an Army major was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for water boarding an insurgent in the Philippines.

"Even when you're fighting against belligerents who don't respect the laws of war, we are obliged to hold the laws of war," said Rejali. "And water torture is torture."

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“By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.”
~ Albert Camus (1913 - 1960)

"Don't take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side."
~ Baltasar Gracian

Huckabee's 1992 words get new attention

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - The U.S. shouldn't try to kill Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Mike Huckabee declared when he first ran for office. No women in combat anywhere. No gays in the military. No contributions in politics to candidates more than a year before an election.

His statements are among 229 answers Huckabee offered as a 36-year-old Texarkana pastor during his first run for political office in 1992. In that unsuccessful race against Sen. Dale Bumpers, Huckabee offered himself as a social conservative and listed "moral decay" as one of the top problems facing the country

GOP Rep Declares US a Christian Nation, Calls on Americans to "Stand Up" and "Worship Christ"

Rep. Steve King recently (R-IA) introduced legislation recognizing the "importance of Christmas and the Christian faith," despite previously opposing resolutions recognizing the Muslim celebration of Ramadan and the Hindu Diwali.

A spokesman for King told ThinkProgress that the congressman simply "thought it was important to honor Christmas" by introducing the bill. Yet today on Fox News, King went further, decrying an "assault on Christmas" from "secularists" who want to "eradicate Christ from Christmas." Ignoring the Constitution, King claimed America is really a "Christian nation":

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But the congress cannot take the time necessary to investigate for impeachment? Any questions?