US Censured For Waterboarding
The UN’s chief torture investigator criticized the US government yesterday for defending the use of “waterboarding”, an interrogation method often described as a form of torture.
Manfred Nowak, the special rapporteur on torture, said: “This is absolutely unacceptable under international human rights law. [The] time has come that the government will actually acknowledge that they did something wrong and not continue trying to justify what is unjustifiable.”
On Tuesday, the CIA admitted for the first time that it had used the technique, in which interrogators strap a suspect to a board and pour water through a cloth over the face, creating a sensation of drowning. Testifying before Congress, the CIA director, Michael Hayden, said the method had been used on the suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and senior al-Qaida leaders Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.
He said waterboarding had not been used for five years, but yesterday the White House deputy spokesman Tony Fratto said the practice could be revived if authorized by the president. It would depend on the circumstances, including the belief that an attack might be imminent.
Nowak, an Austrian law professor, said: “I’m not willing any more to discuss these questions with the US government, when they still say that this is allowed. It’s not allowed.”
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
Maybe Bush thinks this is a water sport that he can enjoy on Lake Waco when he retires. Sort of like boogie boarding, or skim boarding. Maybe we just have a big misunderstanding here. Bush is thinking Schlitterbahn. The UN is thinking Schadenfreude.
“And in the general hardening of outlook that set in … practices which had been long abandoned … — imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and the deportation of whole populations — not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.”
george orwell
1984
since it’s legal, i suppose it’s also not a threat to say that
i’m going to waterboard george bush and dick cheney until they too die.
Interesting how the new AG has a portrait of Orwell hanging in a place of honor in his office, eh?
Also, patting the VP on the back is legal, too. But I wouldn’t advise you try it.
Words of outrage are fine. But what will the UN and the nations of the world DO? Law without enforcement is not law. It is not illegal for me to drive 38 mph on a street with a 35 mpg limit. At least where I live, it only become enforceable at 45 mph. They give you nine. If Congress or the UN don’t enforce the laws, there are no laws.
Whereas McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is against waterboarding in agreement with international law, one of the two potential Democratic nominees, Hillary Clinton, was for legalizing waterboarding by Presidential decision, in 2006. Bill Clinton also advocated legal Presidential waterboarding in 2006 and has never retracted that. Hillary appeared to retract her support for legal Presidential waterboarding in a New Hampshire debate in Sept. 2007, but in October 2007 “clarified” that apparent retraction by saying that actually, she wasn’t sure that she disagreed with Bush administration practices in this area and would have to look into it further after she was president before she could decide. For all of this, see “Clinton Backs off support for torture”, Politico 9/27/07 http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/6050.html
and “Clinton Cites Lessons of Partisanship”, Washington Post 10/10/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/09/AR2007100902284.html
Democrat Obama and Republican McCain, by contrast, have unabiguously vowed to end waterboarding and other Bush-era forms of torture by the U.S. If Hillary is the Democratic nominee, the only assurance of ending presidentially-approved US torture would be a vote for McCain. Better for the Democrats to nominate the dynamic Obama to go head to head against McCain in November. This issue is not trivial, but goes to the soul of America. Investigate this issue concerning Hillary and weep. I will be doing everything in my power this Saturday in the Washington State caucuses to see that the Democratic nominee is Obama rather than Clinton.
“I have been consistent in my strong belief that no Administration should allow the use of torture, including so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ like water-boarding, head-slapping, and extreme temperatures. It’s time that we had a Department of Justice that upholds the rule of law and American values, instead of finding ways to enable the President to subvert them. No more political parsing or legal loopholes.” — Barack Obama, 10/29/07
A CHICKENHAWK IN EVERY DOCK!
It seems contemptible to assert in a supposedly non-biased newspaper article that waterboarding creates “the sensation of drowning.” What it does do is to start to drown people, and then decide at the last minute whether to kill them or not. Quite a few times, this fine distinction appears to have been improperly made, and the victims wind up just as dead as if they’d been given anaesthesia beforehand.
One might as well say that being hit over the head with a ten-inch spanner creates “the sensation of a blow to the head,” or shooting someone in the face creates “the sensation of a mortal wound.”
This is weasel-worded mystification and spin.
Maybe we should waterboard this administration and find out the real reasons why the 8 federal attorneys were fired,why they lied to us about WMD`s and any other question we can possibly think of.
It is not illegal right?
Waterboarding sounds like one of the things Laura won’t do but Bu$h the inferior used to do with the frat boys and hookers while drinking beer and snorting coke.
No you son of a Bu$h, it’s the torture thing, the drowning torture. WATERSPORTS is the thing Laura won’t do, but the hookers would do for a little extra.
Great comments. How much more will it take until the general populace realizes what it has allowed by not protesting? The popular TV program “24″ was obviously a part of the modus operandi. But DO WE REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING BEHIND THE SCENES? Too much truth too fast now and we may never get Humpty “together again”…
Lets hope “karma” and “collective sin” are just empty rhetoric….otherwise we’re toast.
It’s disturbing to consider the number of citizens that voted our fearless leaders into office the second time around. Many are still the disciples of these sleeze bags.