Citrus just started a new round of swim lessons, and you can see in this photo that she has yet to respect some simple concepts such as Don’t Drown Mommy.
The Navy also starts with the basics, such as making sure Mommy does not drown herself. If a new JAG does not know how to swim, in Officer Indoctrination School she has to at least learn how to stay afloat for five minutes and swim 50 yards. That way if you fall off a ship, you at least have a chance to be rescued. Of course, there was no practice involving a toddler attached to your head, which I believe could violate the Geneva Conventions under certain circumstances.
Perhaps Elysia can raise that question in class tomorrow at the Army JAG school. They are going to discuss the Geneva Conventions, and I imagine the lecture has the potential to draw on some interesting examples such as waterboarding. The Bush Administration surprised a lot of people last month by announcing that they consider it to be legal under certain circumstances, whereas Congress has already banned it (twice) and the Supreme Court ruled against the Administration’s treatment of detainees.
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama condemn waterboarding and three Republicans in particular have been very critical of it as well: Senators Lindsay Graham, John Warner, and John McCain. In one of the Republican debates, McCain was sharply critical of Mitt Romney for not taking a position on the issue — it was TV worth watching!
Unfortunately, just two weeks ago McCain voted AGAINST a Senate bill that would ban the C.I.A. from using waterboarding and other harsh techniques. The strong convictions he displayed on camera seem to have disappeared when it came time to walk the talk.
In any case, it will be interesting to see if his change of heart comes up in the Presidential debates or if conservatives rally around him now that he is the GOP candidate and reserve their criticism for Senator Lindsay Graham. Graham, an Air Force JAG, has apparently angered many people by asking the most simplist of questions: If Iran captured and waterboarded one of our servicemembers, would it be torture?
Even if this is particular example is grandstanding, few officials – including the Attorney General — are willing to answer the question. I think military families deserve an answer.
3 Responses to “Don’t Drown Mommy”
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I do, too! But really, we all know the answer - and this debate is nothing short of shameful. I just want to push reset and go back to the (relatively) sane 1990’s.
319 days. *sigh*
McCain is pathetic. His embrace of the radical right makes me sick. I lost a huge amount of respect for him when he hugged Bush after the 2000 primary. This was, you’ll remember, after Bush and Rove insinuated to South Carolina voters that he had fathered a black love child. He could have told the truth there at the convention, but instead he hugged Bush. He sold his soul to the devil. Then, it was downhill from there. Before you knew it, he was speaking at Bob Jones University, making love to lobbyists, and embracing torture. McCain was a good man, and he could have been a great leader. Instead he decided to play ball with the fundamentalists.
The President vetoed the bill, which would have limited the CIA to the interrogation methods in the Army manual. The Army manual finds some of these methods, including waterboarding, to be of limited value in collecting good intelligence. It seems to me that either we torture people or we don’t, and the distinction between the Army and CIA is lost on other countries.
From CNN:
“Among the techniques the field manual prohibits are hooding prisoners or putting duct tape across their eyes, stripping them naked, forcing them to perform or mimic sexual acts, or beating, electrocuting, burning or otherwise physically hurting them.
They may not be subjected to hypothermia or mock executions. It does not allow food, water and medical treatment to be withheld. Dogs may not be used in any aspect of interrogation.
But waterboarding is the most high-profile and controversial of the interrogation methods in question.
* * *
[Waterboarding] has been traced back hundreds of years to the Spanish Inquisition and is condemned by nations around the world and human rights organizations as torture.
* * *
Others say that, even if legal, there are practical arguments against waterboarding: that its use would undermine the U.S. when arguing overseas for human rights and on other moral issues and would place Americans at greater risk of being tortured when captured.