Is
waterboarding torture?
|
I |
s
waterboarding torture? It seems that some in
Washington are unwilling to answer this question because of legal implications
that would arise from their answer, while others appear either too ignorant or
simply just afraid to admit the truth.
President
Bush has said dozens of times, America does NOT torture. Congress even passed a
bill saying torture is illegal and President Bush signed the bill making it the
law of the land. But that did not address whether waterboarding
is torture, or if it’s even legal.
The
new Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey told the
Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearings that an interrogation
technique that simulates drowning is “repugnant” but declined to call it
illegal. The new AG went on to say that in the absence of legislation
“expressly banning certain interrogation techniques in all circumstances, one
must consider whether a particular technique complies with relevant legal
standards.”
The
AG’s response is a perfect example of someone unwilling to give a direct answer
as to whether waterboarding is illegal, and this is
from a former judge who is now our Attorney General.
Last
week, Gwen Ifill of PBS was interviewing Senator Kit
Bond, R-Mo., and she asked the Senator: “I just would like to — but do you
think that waterboarding, as I described it,
constitutes torture?” And the Senator’s response was: “There are different ways
of doing it. It’s like swimming, freestyle, backstroke.”
The
Senator’s response is a perfect example of someone who is either ignorant or
afraid to answer the question. I personally think that both terms apply to the
Senator.
A
few days back we learned that the CIA destroyed videotapes that revealed some
of its “harshest interrogation tactics” that may have included waterboarding and other forms of torture. Congress was in
an uproar over this and said that they would start an investigation and demand
that CIA Director Michael Hayden testify. When the new AG Mukasey
heard about this he recommended that the CIA director abstain from any
testimony. It has now become standard operating procedure that any official
under the Bush administration abstain from any requests or subpoena’s that
would require any testimony under oath, or where notes and taping may be done.
The
CIA said the reason the tapes were destroyed was because they did not want the
interrogators identity to become known. You would think that with today’s
technology, they could have just blurred out the face, maybe they never thought
of that. Or maybe the real reason was because Vice President Dick Cheney was
the one doing the waterboarding, which sounds as good
a reason as theirs.
So is waterboarding legal or illegal? Is it torture?
Four
retired Judge Advocate General’s Corps attorneys recently sent a letter to Sen.
Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., stating that waterboarding “is
inhumane, it is torture, and it is illegal,” and that as recently as 2006 the
military’s JAG corps unanimously agreed that waterboarding
is off limits for U.S. personnel, due to the fact that the technique clearly
violates the Geneva Conventions.
Waterboarding was first used
during the Spanish Inquisition; it was used during WWII by the Japanese; it was
used during the Vietnam War by the United States; it was also used by the Khmer
Rouge, and it is again being used by the United States.
And
you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s been used by many other nations. Such
illustrious company we have.
If
any reasonable person were asked if forced suffocation during the simulation of
drowning of a detainee, during what Cheney likes to call intense interrogation,
amounted to torture, they would tell you, “of course it does!”
Which
points out the obvious: There are no reasonable people that work for President
Bush.
Three cheers for the Red, White and Blue.