Torture advocate William Haynes resigns

Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes, who was a “prime mover” in the Bush administration’s efforts to bypass the Geneva Convention, announced today that he “is returning to private life next month.” Already a controversial figure due to his torture advocacy, the negative spotlight on Haynes increased last week when former Gitmo prosecutor Col. Morris Davis told The Nation that Haynes had insisted that the administration “can’t have acquittals” at Guantanamo Bay. More on Haynes’ role in the Bush administration here.

Fox News ‘Comedian’ Declares ‘Waterboarding: It’s A Good Thing’

In a FoxNews.com column, Greg Gutfeld — host of Fox’s 2 a.m. “dark humor” news show you’ve never heard of — writes this “comedic” defense of waterboarding:

Now, waterboarding might be torture, but as long as people I hate also hate waterboarding, then I love it more than life itself. … So I cherish waterboarding. I want to make it our national sport, our national bird. I want to make the waterboard the state flower of Vermont, instead of the Birkenstock.

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For too many conservatives, waterboarding is a big joke to be taken lightly. Rachel Marsden — Gutfeld’s former co-host — claimed waterboarding was simply a “CIA-sponsored swim lesson.” Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) said yesterday that waterboarding is “like swimming, freestyle, backstroke.” Conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds said he’d “be happy to” be waterboarded, and John Ashcroft suggested he’d also be willing to take the dive.

Waterboarding is not “simulated drowning.” It is drowning. As Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and William Delahunt (D-MA) explained, “The victim’s lungs fill with water until the procedure is stopped or the victim dies.” Former Navy survival instruction Malcolm Wrightson Nance explained to Congress:

In my case, the technique was so fast and professional that I didn’t know what was happening until the water entered my nose and throat. … It then pushes down into the trachea and starts the process of respiratory degradation. It is an overwhelming experience that induces horror and triggers frantic survival instincts. As the event unfolded, I was fully conscious of what was happening: I was being tortured.

Perhaps these conservative armchair torture pundits need to follow Daniel Levin’s lead and gain some first-hand enlightenment about waterboarding.

Changes in Guantanamo Bay SOP manual (2003-2004)

Wikileaks and The Center for Constitutional Rights cracks open the torture manual or the closest thing to it. To think the Bush admin. does this in our name(sic).

Fox News refuses to run pro-Constitution ad

Fox News has refused to air an ad produced by the Center for Constitutional Rights that criticizes the Bush administration for "destroying the Constitution" by the use of renditions, torture, and other tactics. The ad, "Rescue the Constitution," which is narrated by actor Danny Glover.

In an email provided to Media Matters for America by the Center, Fox News account executive Erin Kelly told Owen Henkel, the Center's e-communications manager, that Fox would not run the ad:

Hi Owen --

We cannot approve the spot with it being Danny Glover's opinion that the Bush Administration is destroying the Constitution. If you have documentation that it is indeed being destroyed, we can look at that.

Sorry about that,

Erin

In 2005, Fox refused to run an ad critical of then-Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito Jr., who had been nominated by President Bush to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Help put this ad on Fox News.

While President Bush might not read our Supreme Court legal brief or listen to the arguments in next week's case, he'll probably watch the coverage on Fox News. So we've prepared a hard-hitting commercial to show during the O'Reilly Factor. Film star and activist Danny Glover narrates a 30-second video that depicts the shredding of our Constitution

We need your help to put it on the air in Washington, D.C. - in Bush's backyard and in his bedroom.

Can you help? Please make a contribution of $20 (or more if you can) to get the ad aired on the O'Reilly Factor so we can get our message across without being interrupted! If we raise more than we need, we'll take it to other shows like The Countdown with Keith Olbermann, too.