Newt Watch - Torture Edition

Dec 1st, 2011

A few days ago, Newt Gingrich assured his followers that, as President, he would torture. To great applause, he declared that "waterboarding is by every technical rule not torture." Watch the clip below. It is a typically greasy appearance by Newt, full of red meat about a "ticking time bomb" scenario and complete with a dig at the ACLU.

Ben Arbruster fires back:

"Not only is the so-called “ticking time bomb” scenario Gingrich refers to a red herring, waterboarding actually is illegal under international law because it is considered a torture technique. Last year, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez said waterboarding is “immoral and illegal,” and his predecessor agrees."

Sullivan is justifiably enraged:

"The problem is not caprice. The problem is torture. Waterboarding by every conceivable rule is torture. No court has ever found otherwise in any country that adheres to the Geneva Conventions or the UN Coinvention on Torture signed by Ronald Reagan. Several federal court opinions define waterboarding as torture. The US government executed Japanese military leaders following World War II for waterboarding. It was judged torture in the 1926 Mississippi Supreme Court case, which Gingrich as a "historian" should know by now. It is featured in Cambodia's Museum of Torture to commemorate the abuses of the Khmer Rouge. As the UN Rapporteur on torture has said:

I don’t think there is any question, any serious question. I mean it’s a question of severity. If you think that waterboarding is not severe mistreatment you don’t really know what waterboarding is. … I mean if you then redefine upwards the severity standard to say that it’s only severe if it’s organ failure or death, then you know you’re really very clearly distorting the sense of the words and you know words have to be interpreted in treaty language, they have to be interpreted in their plain meaning and their plain meaning couldn’t be more clear in the case of waterboarding.

This is not an opinion. It is a fact. What Gingrich has said is untrue. It cannot stand. What the last president authorized was torture, a war crime under domestic and international law."