More on water boarding: Captain's Quarters interviews a SEAL

Cap'n Ed promised a continuation of his series on water boarding. Today he made good on the promise by interviewing "Mike the SEAL."

Mike's secondary specialty in the SEAL force is as an advanced combat medic. Without getting into specifics on his experiences, Mike strongly disputes Nance's exaggerations of waterboarding. There is a word for people who have "pint after pint of water" filling their lungs: dead. "In fact," according to Mike, "they would be very, very dead. By definition, anyone who has drowned is in fact dead. A large percentage of true drownings do not involve ANY water entering the lungs because the epiglottis closes off the air passages as water enters the throat. People who die immediately from being immersed in water actually die of suffocation, not water entering their lungs. Not only that, many people who survive a near-drowning who do have even small amounts of water that slip by the epiglottis and enter their lungs can die later of fluid shifts and pneumonia. I can assure you that we do not use any technique that involves true suffocation or aspiration of water into the lungs. One cannot get questions to answers from people who suffocate or have water fill their lungs in any interrogation technique, which would render that technique more than a little self-defeating.
(Captain's Quarters)

Mike's report helps confirm my suspicion that a number of commentators have sold a bill of goods regarding their opinion of water boarding.

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The debate on water boarding

Cap'n Ed over at Captain's Quarters has promised a followup to a post he offered last week on water boarding.

The Cap'n gave his tentative stamp of approval to a story on water boarding by Malcolm Nance. Nance claimed a degree of expertise, and judged that water boarding is unequivocal torture.

As Cap'n Ed since noted, the commentary on that post erupted in controversy. One aspect of the controversy I found particularly intriguing was Nance's claim that he underwent waterboarding in training with the result that he had water poured directly into his lungs (not that it bypassed his throat or nasal passages!).

From what I understand about modern water boarding, the prisoner is stabilized in supine on an incline, with the result that water would have to flow uphill to enter the lungs. Now, given proper conditions it is certainly possible to draw water up an incline to enter the lungs. The normal use of a soda straw attests to that readily enough.

The thing is, water boarding techniques (such as compressing the chest and covering the mouth and nose with cellophane) seem to make that type of aspiration by suction difficult if not impossible. As a result, Nance's testimony seemed dubious.

In the followup, Cap'n Ed promised to provide accounts by two sources with the same type of qualifications clalimed by Nance. Ed drops the hint that both were appalled by Nance's account.

I will look forward to the next chapter in this story.

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The Mukasey snag

Powerline and Captain's Quarters each take a stab at unraveling the objections against Michael Mukasey's nomination for Attorney General.

Mukasey has refused to opine about waterboarding on the ground that he doesn't know what's involved in the technique. But this will not remain a tenable basis for not answering, since it's not difficult to find out what waterboarding entails.

Mukasey should testify that waterboarding is legal in exigent circumstances. Alternatively, he should find another basis for refusing to answer the question.
(Power Line)

Captain Ed's take reminds me of my commentary from a week ago (though certainly not in a plagiaristic kind of way!).

And here is the core of the silliness in this standoff. Here we have Congress, as represented by the Judiciary Committee, demanding that an AG candidate declare a specific act illegal. They have it completely backwards. Congress has the responsibility to pass laws and make the determination of legality and illegality -- and the AG has the responsibility to enforce those laws.
(Captain's Quarters)

Contrast these opinions with that of Robyn Blumner (from her editorial last week):

On the issue of torture, Mukasey's first dance was with the committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont. Mukasey condemned torture because that "is not what this country is about," but when asked about particular interrogation practices such as waterboarding, Mukasey refused to call those methods illegal. On hearing Day Two, Mukasey told Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., "If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional."

Notice the big "if."

This is essentially the same tactic used by the president in defending against torture allegations. Bush insists we don't torture, because the pain and suffering we inflict on our prisoners has been defined in the Unabridged Bush Presidency Dictionary as something other than torture. (A little dunk in water, as the vice president might say.) If Mukasey buys into this semantical legerdemain, as he seems to, then he's not worthy of the job.

(St. Petersburg Times)

Blumner takes for granted that Mukasey should regard water boarding as illegal even if there is no law against it.

It is absurd for Mukasey to rule water boarding illegal on his own authority, particularly because (as Ed Morrissey reminded us) the technique is used by the U.S. government on our own soldiers as part of their training.

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Dems making reasonable case for emotional appeals

A post over at Captain's Quarters served as a fresh reminder of a Robyn Blumner column that I treated weeks ago. Blumner was excited about the prospect seeing Democrats engage in hardball campaigning that engages the emotions instead of the intellectual appeals that apparently explain the left's past difficulties in achieving its fair share of elected representation (not to rule out the Diebold conspiracy!). Blumner (I'm not kidding!) rued the fact that Democrats stick with reasonable arguments.

Captain Ed made pretty much the same points that I made, though using a new set of examples.

Have you wondered why the Democrats seem incapable of stopping the George Bush agenda, even after taking control of both chambers of Congress? Could it be the fact that they won their majority by electing more conservative Democrats to replace some center-right Republicans? Perhaps because their agenda doesn't have the allure that Democrats thought? Or perhaps their leadership has just proven itself incompetent?

According to one staffer on the Hill, none of those present the biggest problem for Democrats. They just don't tickle the amygdalae:

(Captain's Quarters)

Rather than just tell you that Cap'n Ed offers a nice set of damning counterexamples, I'll offer a taste:

For a good amygdalae tickle, one can't get any better than Pete Stark during the S-CHIP debate, when he accused Bush of sending troops to Iraq so he could enjoy having their heads blown off.

And just in case you missed Stark's stark-raving limelight moment:



The short version got taken down, but the relevant portion kicks off this longer version.

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Amen

Not much need to add to what Cap'n Ed Morrissey wrote regarding the Democrats' two-facedness regarding General David Petraeus:

At Heading Right, I look at the sudden use of the phrase "the Bush report" in describing Petraeus' testimony, and how it seeks to undermine the integrity of this career officer for the political expediency of the anti-war Democrats. Of particular note is the fact that the same Senators who didn't cast a single vote against this highly-regarded commander taking over the effort in Iraq suddenly feel that Petraeus would conspire with George Bush to deliver a dishonest report to Congress. Which is more likely -- that a career commander would deliberately lie about events in Iraq that already have garnered plenty of independent evidence for success, or that Dick Durbin and Harry Reid would smear the military for their own political gain?

Yes, that's a rhetorical question.

(Captain's Quarters--go read the rest)

I had a dim view of the Democrats' ability to put together a coherent and/or rational policy on Iraq when they gained control of Congress in 2006.

I'm sorry to say that their performance has failed to rise to the level of my low expectations.