Back to Waterboarding

A lot has been made of who said what about whether waterboarding was torture or not. The practice of placing a cloth or a cloth bag over someone’s face and pouring water onto it thus causing the person to instinctively feel as if they are drowning has been hotly debated ever since it became clear that the practice was accepted as far up as the White House. The White House and President Bush in particular were quick to point out however, that it does not constitute torture.

Well the fact is that it does to anyone experiencing it, as National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has clarified in a Huffington Post article:

"If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful! Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture," McConnell told the magazine.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey along with McConnell however decline to classify waterboarding as torture because they would open a can of worms the size of Texas. So now we are talking about everyone knowing that it IS torture but declining to offically admit it. Well isn’t that grand. I feel like I’m watching a kiddie’s tea party.

But the bottom line is that the United States has been torturing people and the litmus test is this: anyone experiencing waterboarding – anyone – would declare it to be torture, would claim it was torture and would state that they were being or had been tortured. This, all the while that Mr Bush has been saying “We do not torture.”

Well actually, yes you do. Your own National Intelligence Director just said so.