New
story from the Common Dreams
Newswire regarding the Bush Administration's continued attempt to block the citizens of this country from knowing exactly what is being done in their name. I know many believe that the ACLU sometimes is involved in matters that are not relevant to its mission and are frustrated by some of its actions, but in these last years of an
monarchical administration, they have been one of the few to
continuously push the government in court. They have already been
successful in having reams of memorandums released under the Freedom Of Information Act. Some that specifically demonstrate that the Administration continues to encourage
waterboarding as an "enhanced interrogation". Now I often have arguments with my conservative friends about
waterboarding, they of course state that it is not torture due to the fact that no physical injury results. But lets actually look at a description of someone who has undergone the procedure:
A towel was fixed under the chin and down over the face. Then many buckets of water were poured into the towel so that the water gradually reached the mouth and rising further eventually also the nostrils, which resulted in his becoming unconscious and collapsing like a person drowned. This procedure was sometimes repeated 5-6 times in succession. They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about two gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness.
An account of an Al
Queda suspect? possibly an Iraqi insurgent? Wrong again, this is a recounting of an American soldier who was captured by the Japanese in WWII. The quote was part of testimony in you guessed it a trial for war crimes. So the question is if it was torture then, why is it not torture now? I have yet to hear a reasonable response from my conservative friends. A great quick read on this is an
article that ran in the
Washington Post in 2007 by Evan
Wallach.
New story from the Common Dreams Newswire regarding the Bush Administration's continued attempt to block the citizens of this country from knowing exactly what is being done in their name. I know many believe that the ACLU sometimes is involved in matters that are not relevant to its mission and are frustrated by some of its actions, but in these last years of an monarchical administration, they have been one of the few to continuously push the government in court. They have already been successful in having reams of memorandums released under the Freedom Of Information Act. Some that specifically demonstrate that the Administration continues to encourage waterboarding as an "enhanced interrogation". Now I often have arguments with my conservative friends about waterboarding, they of course state that it is not torture due to the fact that no physical injury results. But lets actually look at a description of someone who has undergone the procedure:
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