If people saw this (and, IMO, the treatment shown was pretty mild, I think), there would likely be a more concerted reaction to Congress' foot-dragging on the issue, and to Appointee candidates' pussy-footing and outright dissembling on the issue.

I'd like our Candidates to submit to that treatment and then say with a straight face that it's not torture.

-5.75,-4.05
Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, but it's very funny--
Did you ever try buying them without money?
-- Ogden Nash

-5.75,-4.05
Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, but it's very funny--
Did you ever try buying them without money?
-- Ogden Nash

this is an apparently young, physically fit, otherwise uninjured person. Other "demonstrations" of waterboarding that I've seen posted online, are much more aggressive. I'd try to find more but these are repulsive enough for one day.

This guy sounds just like Jimmy Stewart

Answers

SNIP

On September 6, 2006, the United States Department of Defense released a revised Army Field Manual entitled Human Intelligence Collector Operations that prohibits the use of waterboarding by U.S. military personnel. The revised manual was adopted amid widespread criticism of U.S. handling of prisoners in the War on Terrorism, and prohibits other practices in addition to waterboarding. The revised manual applies to U.S. military personnel, and as such does not apply to the practices of the CIA.[15]

In its 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the U.S. Department of State formally recognizes "submersion of the head in water" as torture in its examination of Tunisia's poor human rights record, [16] and critics of waterboarding draw parallels between the two techniques, citing the similar usage of water on the subject.

In an older case, a Japanese military officer, Yukio Asano, was tried by the United States in 1947 for carrying out a form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian during World War II, and was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.[17] The charges against Asano also included "beating using hands, fists, club; kicking; burning using cigarettes; strapping on a stretcher head downward."

Even more on this awful subject courtesy of WIKI
with a picture left over from when everybody was still capable of distinguishing torture techniques...

Painting of waterboarding at Cambodia's Tuol Sleng Prison, by former inmate Vann Nath.

Scholar Links Bush's US and Hirohito's Japan

A top US scholar of wartime Japan said Wednesday that the Bush administration's "war on terror" bore close parallels to Japan's past militarism through a defiance of international law.

Herbert Bix, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his landmark biography of wartime emperor Hirohito, said he believed US aerial bombings and alleged use of torture in Afghanistan and Iraq constituted war crimes.

"The current American rampage in Iraq and elsewhere, not to mention the Bush administration's threats of war against Iran, so clearly replicates Imperial Japan during the period when its leaders willfully disregarded international law and pursued the diplomacy of force," Bix said during a visit to Tokyo.

The minute you do, some asshole will dance up to the edge of it.

It's like "indecency" as (un)defined as a broadcast standard. Leave it undefined and it keeps people afraid to dance to close of the edge.

Strategically - never define it. Never permit it to be defined.

It keeps them afraid to even get close to it.

Al Quaeda have won this round.

That we are discussing "torture" at all after the events of the last few years demonstrates clearly to people outside the US our values.

How many people are we winning to our side?

There are people in this world who put themselves through "tortures" that may make what we see here seem rather lame. They do it for various reasons, usually to show off, to conquer some fear, or possibly to stroke a strong masochistic impulse...whatever. Now we see a new reason to simulate torture: Justifying real torture in the minds of fools.

A whole universe of pain divides "waterboarding" when you know your buddies intend to stop before you are injured or seriously freaked out, versus being really waterboarded by psychotic sadists who have every intention of hurting you badly AND crushing the last particle of your human dignity. And then they do so, over and over, for years.

When your young daughter is dragged unwilling into a CIA torture room, she does not know her torturers, but she is terrified that they will rape her, beat her and do whatever else they wish to her, rendering her "soiled" in the eyes of her own family. When they do in fact rape her and beat her (waterboarding is a side dish), they take special care to emphasize her humiliation, so that she knows her life is essentially over. She might as well commit suicide (and some do) because she will be rejected by her own family, her own community.

Why do they do it?
Because they can.
What do they wish to learn?
How it feels to torture a your daughter.
Do the torturers learn anything of military value?
Who cares? They got to torture your daughter.

Show me that on one of those stupid CNN parodies of torture. Real torture leaves a person physically scarred and spiritually crushed in a way that does not make for good beer stories.

"Adapt or perish." Murphy's Law? Nope, Darwin's Guarantee.

What is torture?
The US has refined the definition.
This still doesn't answer the question.
The Geneva Convention defined the meaning of torture.
The US has not accepted these definitions.
The US now puts them above the laws of the Geneva Convention.
Why does the world hate the US?
Because they make up their own laws to further their own means.
To hell with the rest of the world as long as we have control.

_{repressive governments mix administrative clumsiness & inefficiency with authoritarian tendencies.}

Waterboarding is torture - I did it myself, says US advisor
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 01 November 2007

When the US military trains soldiers to resist interrogation, it uses a torture technique from the Middle Ages, known as "waterboarding". Its use on terror suspects in secret US prisons around the world has come to symbolise the Bush administration's no-nonsense enthusiasm for the harshest questioning techniques.

Although waterboarding has been considered torture for over a century and the US military is banned from using it, controversy over its continuing use by the CIA may be about to derail the appointment of President Bush's candidate for US Attorney-General.

Michael Mukasey, a retired federal judge from New York and a veteran of several al-Qa'ida trials, was questioned by a Senate committee on Tuesday and refused to say whether waterboarding was illegal.

Instead, he called the technique "repugnant to me" and promised to investigate further if he was confirmed in the job. He explained that he could not say yet whether the practice was illegal because he had not been briefed on the secret methods of US interrogators and he did not want to put the CIA officers who used it in "personal legal jeopardy".

Even though Congress banned waterboarding in the US military in 2005, it did not do so for the CIA. As a result, Mr Mukasey told senators, it was uncertain whether this technique or other harsh methods constituted "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment. His answers did not satisfy the Democrats, however, and his approval now hinges on whether he is willing to say the torture method is against US law.

In a further embarrassment for Mr Bush yesterday, Malcolm Nance, an advisor on terrorism to the US departments of Homeland Security, Special Operations and Intelligence, publicly denounced the practice. He revealed that waterboarding is used in training at the US Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School in San Diego, and claimed to have witnessed and supervised "hundreds" of waterboarding exercises. Although these last only a few minutes and take place under medical supervision, he concluded that "waterboarding is a torture technique – period".

The practice involves strapping the person being interrogated on to a board as pints of water are forced into his lungs through a cloth covering his face while the victim's mouth is forced open. Its effect, according to Mr Nance, is a process of slow-motion suffocation.

Typically, a victim goes into hysterics on the board as water fills his lungs. "How much the victim is to drown," Mr Nance wrote in an article for the Small Wars Journal, "depends on the desired result and the obstinacy of the subject.

"A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience to horrific, suffocating punishment, to the final death spiral. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch."

The CIA director Michael Hayden has tried to defuse the controversy. He claims that, since 2002, aggressive interrogation methods in which a prisoner believes he is about to die have been used on only about 30 of the 100 al-Qai'da suspects being held by the US. Meanwhile, a CIA official told The New York Times waterboarding had only been used three times. The Bush administration has suggested that the interrogation of al-Qai'da's second-in-command, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was a success thanks to the technique, and used this to justify continued aggressive interrogations of suspects in secret CIA prisons.

While US media reports typically state that waterboarding involves "simulated drowning", Mr Nance explained that "since the lungs are actually filling with water", there is nothing simulated about it. "Waterboarding," he said, "is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. When done right, it is controlled death."

Mr Nance said US troops were trained to withstand waterboarding, watched by a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a backup team. "When performed with even moderate intensity over an extended time on an unsuspecting prisoner – it is torture, without doubt," he added. "Most people cannot stand to watch a high-intensity, kinetic interrogation. One has to overcome basic human decency to endure watching or causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you to question the meaning of what it is to be an American."

Mr Mukasey's nomination goes before the Senate next week. Three Democratic presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, have already said they will not support him. However, the White House said yesterday that it did not believe his nomination was in jeopardy.

'I felt I was drowning and I was in terrible agony'

Henri Alleg, a journalist, was tortured in 1957 by French forces in Algeria. He described the ordeal of water torture in his book The Question. Soldiers strapped him over a plank, wrapped his head in cloth and positioned it beneath a running tap. He recalled: "The rag was soaked rapidly. Water flowed everywhere: in my mouth, in my nose, all over my face. But for a while I could still breathe in some small gulps of air. I tried, by contracting my throat, to take in as little water as possible and to resist suffocation by keeping air in my lungs for as long as I could. But I couldn't hold on for more than a few moments. I had the impression of drowning, and a terrible agony, that of death itself, took possession of me. In spite of myself, all the muscles of my body struggled uselessly to save me from suffocation. In spite of myself, the fingers of both my hands shook uncontrollably. 'That's it! He's going to talk,' said a voice.

The water stopped running and they took away the rag. I was able to breathe. In the gloom, I saw the lieutenants and the captain, who, with a cigarette between his lips, was hitting my stomach with his fist to make me throw out the water I had swallowed."

i.e "Principle: no torture; exceptions: none." There seem to be too many left of center folks who are willing to leave a grey area, where none should exist. My view, for what it's worth, is that nations, like individuals, have karma, and this stuff comes around; but you don't have to agree with me on this particular to accept my support of your position.

Kudos.

Good judgement is the result of experience, and experience is the result of bad judgement.

it would bring on the apocalypse "worst case scenario".

There is some evil weasel persistently trying to "euphemise" away the whole issue over at the Wikipedia.

I guess a Machiavellian who'd stoop to torture as an acceptable means to an end wouldn't hesitate to hide blatant torture behind a mask of euphemisms and "neutral point of view".

There is only ever one enemy, and that is the military. It doesn't matter which side they purport to be on.

Bush: No Attorney General if Not Mukasey

Friday November 2, 2007 12:01 AM

By LAURIE KELLMAN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush sought to save Michael Mukasey's troubled nomination for attorney general Thursday, defending the retired judge's refusal to say whether he considers waterboarding torture and warning of a leaderless Justice Department if Democrats don't confirm him.

``If the Senate Judiciary Committee were to block Judge Mukasey on these grounds, they would set a new standard for confirmation that could not be met by any responsible nominee for attorney general,'' Bush said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

``That would guarantee that America would have no attorney general during this time of war,'' the president said.

Nonetheless, opposition continued to grow. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., became the fourth of 10 Democrats on the 19-member Judiciary Committee to declare he will vote against Mukasey when the panel decides Tuesday whether to endorse or reject his nomination.

Kennedy said Mukasey's unwillingness to say that waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning, is torture increases the chances that it will be used against U.S. troops.

``Judge Mukasey appears to be a careful, conscientious and intelligent lawyer and he has served our country honorably for many years,'' Kennedy said in a Senate speech announcing his opposition. ``But those qualities are not enough for this critical position at this critical time.''

Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., planned to announce Friday in his state how he will vote next week.

Bush framed Mukasey's nomination with the familiar theme of national security and the attorney general's role in it.

``It's important for Congress to pass laws and/or confirm nominees that will enable this government to more effectively defend the country and pursue terrorists and radicals that would like to do us harm,'' the president said earlier Thursday during a rare Oval Office session with reporters.

The comments raised questions about whether Bush would nominate anyone else to succeed Alberto Gonzales as the nation's top law enforcer. Bush could bypass Congress by filling the job with someone serving in an acting capacity or appointing someone while lawmakers are in recess to serve out the last 14 months of his administration.

Asked if Bush was saying he would not nominate anyone if Mukasey is rejected, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said: ``We don't believe it would come to that. No nominee could meet the test they've presented.''

There is a way for Mukasey to get a full Senate vote even if committee Democrats are united in opposing him. The Senate Judiciary Committee could agree to advance the nomination with ``no recommendation,'' allowing Mukasey the chance to be confirmed by a majority of the 100-member Senate. Several vote-counters in each party said Mukasey probably would get 70 ``yes'' votes.

more

...or he must, since he's beatifying a torturer:

Aide to Rice declines to denounce waterboarding during Guardian America debate

Transcript: 'A decision was made not to talk about it'
Audio: listen to the debate in full

The Guardian, Ed Pilkington, November 5

New York - The top legal adviser within the US state department, who counsels the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, on international law, has declined to rule out the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding even if it were applied by foreign intelligence services on US citizens. John Bellinger refused to denounce the technique, which has been condemned by human rights groups as a form of torture, during a debate on the Bush administration's stance on international law held by Guardian America, the Guardian's US website. He said he would not include or exclude any technique without first considering whether it violated the convention on torture.

The inability of a senior US official to rule out such an interrogation method even in the case of it being used against Americans underlines the legal knots in which the administration has tied itself. The dispute over alleged US involvement in torture has threatened to derail the confirmation of Michael Mukasey as President George Bush's nominee for attorney general. Mr Mukasey, a retired federal judge, faces a confirmation vote from the Senate judiciary committee tomorrow and is facing opposition from Democratic members over his stance on waterboarding. In earlier hearings, Mr Mukasey said he found the method repugnant, but refused to declare it illegal. There has been speculation that he refrained from doing so out of fear that such a declaration would expose US interrogators, as well as their chain of command, possibly up to the level of the president, to possible criminal prosecution.

if teachers start waterboarding students to get to the bottom of, say, rumours about some nefarious high school plot, whether this might now be considered acceptable? If not, why not?

Commentary: Is waterboarding torture? Yes
By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Did Bill Clinton have sex with that woman? Is Elvis Presley really dead? Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear do his ablutions in the woods? Is waterboarding torture?

The answer to all of these questions, put simply, is yes.

All of Judge Michael Mukasey’s artful dodging and word play to avoid acknowledging the obvious to the august members of Senate Judiciary Committee does nothing to change the fact.

When you hog-tie a human being, tilt him head down, stuff a rag in his mouth and over his nostrils and pour water onto the rag slowly and steadily to the point where his lungs fill with water and he's suffocating and drowning, that is torture.

Four decades ago in the field in Vietnam, I saw a suspected Viet Cong waterboarded by South Vietnamese Army troops. The American Army advisers who were attached to the Vietnamese unit turned their backs and walked away before the torture began. It was then a Vietnamese affair and something they couldn't be associated with.

The victim was taken to the edge of death. His body was wracked with spasms as he fought for air. The soldier holding the five-gallon kerosene tin filled with muddy water from a nearby stream kept pouring it slowly onto the rag, and the victim desperately sucking for even a little air kept inhaling that water instead.

It seemed to go on forever. Did the suspect talk? I’m sure he did. I’m sure he told his torturers whatever he thought they wanted to hear, whether it was true or not. But I didn’t see the end of it because one of the American advisers came to me and told me I had to leave; that I couldn’t watch this interrogation, if that's what it was, any longer.

That adviser knew that water torture was torture; he knew that it was outlawed by the Geneva Convention; he knew that he couldn't be a part to it; and he knew that he didn't want me to witness such brutality.

Every member of the Senate Judiciary Committee knows that waterboarding is torture, even the majority who voted to send Judge Mukasey’s nomination to be attorney general, America’s chief law enforcement official, to the floor for a vote.

Waterboarding was torture when it was used during the Spanish Inquisition; it was torture when it was used on Filipino rebels during the 1890s; it was torture when the Japanese Army used it on prisoners in World War II; it was torture when it was used by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; and it's torture when CIA officers or others use it on terrorists.

When George W. Bush was the governor of Texas, the state investigated, indicted, convicted and sentenced to prison for 10 years a county sheriff who, with his deputies, had waterboarded a criminal suspect. That sheriff got no pardon from Gov. Bush.

Waterboarding is torture in the eyes of all civilized peoples, no matter how desperately President George W. Bush tries to rewrite the English language, with which he has only a passing familiarity, anyway. No matter how desperately his entire administration tries to redefine the word "torture" to cover the fact that not only have they acquiesced in its use, but they also have ordered its use.

The president, Vice President Dick Cheney, and their cronies and legal mouthpieces such as David Addington, John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales are doing all they can to avoid one day facing the bar of justice, at home or in The Hague, and being called to account for crimes against humanity.

They want a blank check pardon, and they'll continue searching for attorneys general and judges and justices and senators and members of Congress who'll hand them their stay-out-of-jail-free cards.

As they squirm and wriggle and lie and quibble and cut deals with senators, they claim that "harsh interrogation methods" are necessary to prevent another 9/11. But as terrified as they are by terrorists, they also fear that one day they may be treated no better than some fallen South American dictator or Cambodian despot or hapless Texas sheriff; that they might not be able to leave a guarded, gated compounds in Dallas or Crawford, a ranch in New Mexico or the shores of Chesapeake Bay for fear of arrest and extradition.

No more shopping trips to Paris. No vacations on the Costa Brava. No interludes on some billionaire buddy’s yacht in the Caribbean. No jetting around the world making speeches to fat cats at $1 million a pop like other former presidents. Even Canada would be off-limits.

Now the Democrats, or some of them, are conspiring with them to seat an attorney general who will help facilitate the ever more frantic search for ex post facto immunity for their crimes. Shame on them! There’s such a thing as too loyal an opposition; too cowardly an opposition; too craven an opposition.

Waterboarding is torture. Decent people have acknowledged that for centuries. We sent Japanese war criminals to the gallows for using it. We sent a Texas sheriff to prison for using it. One day, an ex-president and those who helped him and those he ordered to torture fellow human beings may have to plea bargain for their lives and their freedom.