Dear Senators Feinstein and Schumer:
Florida Veterans for Common Sense, a non-partisan veterans’ group with members who have served in every major conflict from WWII to the Iraq, ask you to reconsider your decision to vote to confirm Judge Michael Muskasey as Attorney General.
Judge Mukasey is disingenuous when he says that he doesn’t know if waterboarding is torture. We know. It is an humiliating and demeaning coercive interrogation technique violative of Common Article 3 of The Geneva Conventions, a war crime. After WWII, America prosecuted Japanese soldiers for war crimes who used waterboarding to terrorize American soldiers. Domestic Courts have described “the water cure” and “water torture” as a human rights violations and a means to coerce confessions. The Pentagon’s new interrogation manual prohibits coercive techniques like waterboarding. American law and precedent confirms waterboarding amounts to torture.
Torture is a terror technique and those who employ, condone, or authorize it are terrorists. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. President Bush should not be reluctant to appoint an Attorney General who will prosecute such crimes unless President Bush himself is complicit in authorizing torture.
In the opinion of Florida Veterans for Common Sense, you shame yourself and America by voting to confirm as Attorney General a person who claims not to know if waterboarding is torture. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote legal memoranda condoning torture. Congress nevertheless confirmed him as Attorney General, a tragic mistake. Please don’t make a similar mistake by voting to confirm Judge Muskasey.
Sincerely,
Gene Jones,
President Florida Veterans for Common Sense
Senator Feinstein’s Washington Office: (202) 224-3841, www.feinstein.senate.gov
Senator Schumer’s Washington Office: (202) 224-6542, www.schumer.senate.gov
