Sean Hannity - Waterboarding

I'm disgusted as I sit here and watch a video of Sean Hannity trying desperately to rationalize torture, and so many things are running through my head.

First, he keeps on referring to it as "enhanced interrogation", and refuses to call it what it is...TORTURE! The United Nations Convention against torture states that torture is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a male or female person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions."
Therefore Sean Hannity, lets go ahead and call it what it is, torture. You cannot tell me that being laid on your back 166 times, and almost drowning isn't both physically and mentally painful.

Second: Every time that you try and rationalize the reasons that we torture you mention that they killed 3000 Americans, and that they chopped off Daniel Pearl's head. Now Mr. Hannity, didn't your mother ever teach you that two wrongs don't make a right?! Why would we, the United States of America, a civilized democracy, want to stoop to the levels of so-called terrorists? Doesn't that make us no better than they are?! If we are going to torture innocent people (in the hopes of getting at least one person who knows something), and we are going to hold them without trial, and not give them access to legal counsel, what separates us from the very "terrorists" we are fighting??

Third: In further trying to rationalize torture, you continue to point to the evidence that we got information that allegedly saved hundreds of American lives! This is so naive! To justify breaking the law by saying "well it works!". It's elementary, it's childish, and ignorant! Just because the goal of an action is accomplished, does not give reason to justify that action! If your goal is to rob a bank and give the money to the poor, and you succeed in doing so, that doesn't mean that your reason for robbing the bank justifies robbing a bank!

Fourth: Sean Hannity, you should be ashamed of yourself! You sit there and continually try and justify taking away a persons rights! Rights are just that, rights. To say that you are taking away someone's rights is a contradiction of terms, because if you can take them away at anytime, then they were never truly rights to begin with. In which case, the United States should never have signed the UDHR or the Geneva Convention, or even became a member of the UN. It's repulsive that you would sit there and mock such a tactic as water boarding, and then flippantly say that you would agree to be water boarded for charity...as if it's some sort of game! What disrespect for our soldiers who have been tortured in the past, and for those that will surely be tortured in the future after our actions at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.

To end, when someone breaks the law, and they are caught breaking the law (as is the case with the Bush administration), then they need to reap the consequences of breaking that law! I'm so sick and tired of conservative Republicans telling us that this is the past, and we need to let it go....ALL CRIMES HAPPEN IN THE PAST! Members of the Bush administration broke the law, and now they should be punished for it.