To: one_less who wrote (476323 ) 4/29/2009 9:25:59 PM From: Steve Dietrich Read Replies (3) | Respond to Under your interpretation just about every administration and congress since the beginning of the USA should be criminalized and if living, imprisoned for life or executed. I think it is safe to assume that is not the common sense interpretation of circumstance this law was designed to cover. Certainly the acts committed under Extraordinary Rendition were more severe than the waterboarding interrogations of the Bush Admin. As you know but insist upon ignoring, The Clinton Administration designed and orchestrated Extraordinary Rendition, that is direct and undeniable complicity. here is no doubt that the DOJ and Congress had sanctioned the use of waterboarding under the specific conditions used in interrogation. other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions Dictionaries define "severe" (often conjoined with "pain") to mean "extremely violent or intense: severe pain." American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 1653 (3d ed. 1992); see also XV Oxford English Dictionary 101 (2d ed. 1989) ("Of pain, suffering, loss, or the like: Grievous, extreme" and "Of circumstances . . . : Hard to sustain or endure").
