Text 22737, 129 rader
Skriven 2006-10-07 13:47:28 av Bob Sakowski (1:275/311)
     Kommentar till en text av EARL CROASMUN
Ärende: Re: Torture
===================
EARL CROASMUN wrote:


> Actually, Bob, your "response" showed no indication that 
> you read what I said.  

Is Waterboarding Torture: Ask Our World War Two Vets

In a recent investigative report, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito of ABC
News described the CIA?s use of an interrogation technique called
"waterboarding."

The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head
slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face
and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and
a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring
the treatment to a halt.

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the
water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving
in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won
the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two
and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

In an editorial dated November 12, 2005 the Wall Street Journal denied
that waterboarding was "...anything close to torture."

No one has yet come up with any evidence that anyone in the U.S.
military or government has officially sanctioned anything close to
"torture." The "stress positions" that have been allowed (such as
wearing a hood, exposure to heat and cold, and the rarely authorized
"waterboarding," which induces a feeling of suffocation) are all
psychological techniques designed to break a detainee.

So, who?s right? Is waterboarding torture, or is it merely a stressful
psychological technique?

Interestingly, the United States has long since answered that question.
Following the end of the Second World War we prosecuted a number of
Japanese military and civilian officials for war crimes. including the
torture of captured Allied personnel. At one of those trials, United
States v. Sawada, here?s how Captain Chase Nielsen, a crew member in
the 1942 Doolittle Raid on Japan, described his treatment, when he was
captured, (and later tried for alleged war crimes by a Japanese
military commission):

Q: What other physical treatment was administered to you at that time?

A: Well, I was given what they call the water cure.

Q: Explain to the Commission what that was.

A: Well, I was put on my back on the floor with my arms and legs
stretched out, one guard holding each limb. The towel was wrapped
around my face and put across my face and water was poured on. They
poured water on this towel until I was almost unconscious from
strangulation, then they would let me up until I'd get my breath, then
they'd start over again.

Q: When you regained consciousness would they keep asking you questions?

A: Yes sir they did.

Q: How long did this treatment continue?

A: About twenty minutes.

Q: What was your sensation when they were pouring water on the towel,
what did you physically feel?

A: Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between
life and death.

The prosecutor in that case was vehement in arguing that the captured
Doolittle fliers had been wrongfully convicted by the Japanese
tribunal, in part because they were convicted based on evidence
obtained through torture. "The untrustworthiness of any admissions or
confessions made under torture," he said, "would clearly vitiate a
conviction based thereon."

At the end of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, the International Military
Tribunal for the Far East of which the United States was a leading
member (the Tribunal was established by Douglas MacArthur) convicted
former Japanese Prime Minister Tojo and numerous other generals and
admirals of a panoply of war crimes. Among them was torture:

The practice of torturing prisoners of war and civilian internees
prevailed at practically all places occupied by Japanese troops, both
in the occupied territories and in Japan. The Japanese indulged in this
practice during the entire period of the Pacific War. Methods of
torture were employed in all areas so uniformly as to indicate policy
both in training and execution. Among these tortures were the water
treatment...

The so-called "water treatment" was commonly applied. The victim was
bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced
through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach until he lost
consciousness. Pressure was then applied, sometimes by jumping upon his
abdomen to force the water out. The usual practice was to revive the
victim and successively repeat the process.

 

So, is waterboarding torture? Do we have to wait to find out until an
enemy again does it to captives from our armed forces? What was the
Wall Street Journal thinking?

© 2005 Evan Wallach 


What were YOU thinking Earl?  What makes you such an ardent supporter of
torture?  Would YOU volunteer to undergo waterboarding in order to set
the record straight, Earl?  If not, I suggest you, as we used to say,
sit down and keep your teeth in your mouth because you are making a
horse's ass of yourself.

And yes Earl, if you support Bush and his waterboarding regimen then
yes, you DO support torture.



-- 

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only
unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American
public." -- Theodore Roosevelt
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