Vote "NO" on Torture and Mukasey

by Stephen Cassidy [courtesy of Blog for America]

Water-boarding is term that describes strapping an individual to a board, with a towel pulled tightly across his face, and pouring water on him or her to cut off air and simulate drowning.  It was developed during the Spanish Inquisition.

When asked directly last week whether he thought waterboarding is constitutional, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey was evasive.  NPR noted that Mukasey "danced around the issue of whether waterboarding actually is torture and stopped short of saying that it is." "If it amounts to torture," Mukasey said carefully, "then it is not constitutional."

Bill Richardson has stated,

Waterboarding is torture, and anyone who is unwilling to identify it as such is not qualified to be the chief legal officer of the United States of America.  If I were in the U.S. Senate, I would vote against Mukasey unless he denounces such specific forms of torture.

 What about the Democrats in the U.S. Senate and other Democratic Presidential candidates?  Will they oppose Mukasey unless he denounces the use of torture by our government?  Let's all join together and call on the Senate to vote "no" on torture by defeating Mukasey's nomination.