What Will It Take for Americans to Redeem Their Humanity?
The surreal experience of hearing actual debate on PBS about whether waterboarding is torture.
One individual -- a former intelligence officer who has been waterboarded and who has waterboarded other individuals he was training in the technique, says, "It is not simulated drowning, it is actual drowning."
"It is slowly filling another human's lungs with water until they are willing to tell you anything you want to hear. Anything to make it stop. It is torture and it was used by individuals tried in the Nuremburg Trials. It is against all norms of prisoner treatment, including the Geneva Convention."
It has been used in Argentina, in Burma ... in what other countries despised for their absence of human rights?
And yet, the other American in this discussion wants to give the President his "full arsenal, a full toolbox." Dear God.
What does it take for us to redeem our humanity? Haven't we done enough?
posted by mireille at 8:42 PM
4 Comments:
Yeah, a debate about whether waterboarding is torture or not sounds like a Monty Python sketch indeed. Now bring the soft pillows...
9:27 PM
It's true, Ariel. "If the prisoner doesn't drown, he must be a witch!" I wonder if they have carrot masks at Guantanamo.
I agree Mireille. That we're debating this proves we're a generation of sophists.
4:21 AM
Amazing, isn't it? How could anyone think it was anything other than torture? How could The United States of America be doing this??????
7:27 AM
You know what occurs to me, TLP? That there are two sides to this story. The world as Cheney sees it and the world 300 million other Americans see. That should not be a debate.
3:47 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home