“If Waterboarding Does Not Constitute Torture, Then There Is No Such Thing as Torture”
July 2nd, 2008
It’s hard to believe any of the creeps, perverts, and sadists who connived at and then defended torture by the US military and intelligence services under the Bush administration can still maintain their dismissive and amoral charade. Over and over we have heard the reality of waterboarding and other shameful abuses. Over and over we have heard that these torture techniques were adopted from practices used by the most lawless enemies of the US, practices the US had formerly denounced as war crimes and had refused to countenance within our own doctrine. (Just today it was revealed that specific training materials for torture had been lifted wholesale from a Korean-war-era review of Chinese military torture techniques intended to elicit false confessions.) And over and over we have heard how inhumane and unbearable these techniques are, while smug psychopaths like Jay Baybee, John Yoo, and Alberto Gonzales dismissed such complaints and sickeningly passed off torture and abuse as some kind of game or inconvenience.
As if it has to be said again - and apparently it does - Christopher Hitchens volunteered to undergo a mild form of waterboarding and report his experiences in this month’s Vanity Fair.
Categories: Culture, Fiasco, General, Iraq, News & Current Events, Politics, Terrorism, Torture | 9 Comments
