In a news release earlier today it was reported that the Bush Administration attempted to defend the use of an interrogation technique known as "waterboarding" with the claim that it is "legal" rather than "torture" as some persons have claimed, and that by employing this method American lives have been saved! In testimony before Congress, CIA Director Michael Hayden stated that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abdal-Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003. --- Information contained in a news release - Feb. 6, 2008
Well now -- what have we here? As mentioned in the title, certain types of "boarding" are quite OK and in some cases most pleasant and enjoyable to experience, but "waterboarding?"
Some may not be familiar with what goes on when a person is "waterboarded" -- definitely it stands in sharp contrast to being on a skateboard or a snowboard!
OK, are you ready? First, you strap the victim down so that he or she is unable to move in such a manner as to remove the cloth which is placed over the face. Now don't jump to conclusions at this point and say, "Well, that doesn't sound too bad -- I can still breathe if I have a cloth over my face!" Wait -- here's the good part as practiced by some U.S. government "interrogators" -- the next step is pouring water over the cloth and getting it well saturated so that the victim goes through the agonizing experience of feeling as though he is drowning and struggling to get his next breath!
The history of this goes back over the centuries to the Spanish Inquisition and is presently condemned by most nations around the world.
Since Bush and his supporters insist that this isn't "torture," why not have them go through the "procedure" and see what their conclusions are afterward -- about 2 or 3 days of this prolonged "treatment" should do it, wouldn't you think? After all the gagging and choking has subsided may we expect each one of them, president included, to say, "No, that's not torture at all!"
Will it be stopped? Not likely and we don't know the whole story as to how suspects have been or are presently being treated. Some would argue that since they do horrible things to us, we should retaliate in kind -- treat them as they would treat us, etc. That might fly a little bit if we were a nation that makes no claim to being civilized or that we have "In God We Trust" stamped on coins and currency, or that we place hand over heart and in final words of our Pledge of Allegiance, we say "...one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all."
But then again, since we have pretty well regressed to being a rather violent heathen style of culture, the practice of waterboarding is no more offensive -- in fact, less so, than our national practice of brutally mutilating and murdering thousands of unborn children in the womb each week, is it not? Toll so far in the "land of the free and the home of brave" is over 48 million victims!
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Do not trust in these lying words, saying, 'The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are these.' For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt, then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, 'We are delivered to do all these abominations?'" --- Jeremiah 7:3-10
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