O'Donnell & Col. Wilkerson On Rove: Having Doctors At Waterboardings Sounds Like The Nazi's.

Oh, that’s classy. Nazi camp comparisons? I thought comparing people to Nazi’s was off-limits since those raaaaacist Tea Party signs?

Lawrence O’Donnell: First, I have a personal question on this for you. I’ve noticed that all the biggest fans of torture like Cheney and Rove and Mark Theissen, have lived very comfortable lives in which they never once considered destroying that comfort by submitting themselves to a single day of military service.

Col. Wilkerson: Not a single day. Five deferments for Dick Cheney.

Lawrence O’Donnell: As a military man, what does that feel like to watch the cheerleaders safely positioned on the sidelines their whole lives try to tell you what’s the most effective process and technique in war.

Col. Wilkerson: Well, it says to me and I’ll make no bones about it, that their all cowards. I mean it’s plain and simple, they are all cowards.

Lawrence O’Donnell: It does seem to me that there’s some kind of moral test here in advocacy. That if you are going to advocate things like this, you should have some kind of experience with them beyond reading memos. I’ve talked to former Navy Seals, ah, who went through  waterboarding who say, ‘oh, it’s torture. There’s no question about it.’

Col. Wilkerson: It’s been torture, Lawrence, since the Spanish Inquisition. If Rove were a General in the Philipines after the Spanish-American war, he would have been relieved by the Commander-in-Chief, Teddy Roosevelt. And thrown out of the United States Army, for the same offense.

Col. Wilkerson: Waterboarding is torture. And what Rove is saying makes a liar out of the President of the United States. Because more than once I listened to my President, George W. Bush, say to the public that the United States did not torture. And that was a lie, because waterboarding is torture.

Lawrence O’Donnell: Now Rove says that under the circumstances he describes, waterboarding is not torture. He said that because it was done in the presence of a doctor..

Col. Wilkerson: Slick it up with some doctors and slick it up with some other medical personal present, that sounds like the Nazi’s.

Lawrence O’Donnell: They had a few doctors at Nazi prison camps and death camps, didn’t they?

Col. Wilkerson: Absolutely, Nuremberg cites the responsibility of physicians in that regard, and it isn’t positive what they say about them. I can’t imagine a physician or a psychiatrist or anyone allowing his ethical code, his professional code, to be so grossly violated that he would agree to be present at these sorts of thing.